The Book of Arrows the poetry of Mike Amado as edited by Jack Scully and Nancy Brady Cunningham has been just released from the Cervena Barva Press of Somerville, Mass. Mike was a member of Somerville’s Bagel Bards and died of kidney failure at age 34. I decided to use a poem from this collection in the LYRICAL. Here is a statement from the editors:

“In this book we try to show you a picture of Mike’s early life in Plymouth and his family [Beginnings]. How his poetry evolved from the dark to tell us about things which he believed were wrong and should be changed, especially the wrongs done against “Native Americans” and the warehousing of kidney patients into dialysis units [Blooming]. In October of 2008 Mike knew that his time was coming to an end and this book includes seven poems written during the last months before his death [Endings]. Mike had almost 500 unpublished poems. In his final months he put some of them in collections on his computer in what he called books. Most of the poems in this volume were under the heading of The Book of Arrows; thus, our title. This collection is fondly dedicated to Michael “Mike” “Spokenwarrior” Amado [April 23, 1975-January 2, 2009].”

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Test

I had a teacher who was a weekend archeologist.
She brushed the ground for Native leftovers . . .

a form of human interaction.   She affirmed:
“I don’t study any Indian under three hundred years old.”

I told her I was a poet. Her eyes subdued by inquisition,
her question scraped me slightly . . .

“You mean like Byron, Shelley or Keats?”
“No, not quite,” I said . . .  “I’m alive.”

My sole proof of humanness is that I create.
I can’t determine what will be smothered, what will erode

or resist burial and rise from the soil protruding
like noncurrent bones forming fingers,

fingers of swimming hands,
swimming in soil-waves.

Can’t say if brushes will dust my words
as proof of signs of life and standing the test of time.

Like my Native blood,
poetry is a live fish, un-caught.

The watchers around me are Baudelaire, Blake and Bly;
Shaman and Storyteller.   Just to be alive with a found soul

is all the test I have time for.

We are bones swimming in soil-waves,

we emerge with a sunken jewel –

that’s all the test we have time for.

– Mike Amado

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To order The Book of Arrows go to http://cervenabarvapress.com/

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To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to:
Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143.
dougholder@post.harvard.edu