"Myth was as real as a scalp being scraped for lice."

What a fantastic line! It's from the title poem, which is the best of the poems collected here - all of them are good, but that one's outstanding. I think I'm going to have to buy a copy of this for myself (I'm currently reading the one held by the university library) just so I can have that one poem on tap to read again whenever I want to.

It's always interesting reading work from authors who come from cultures that are so different from my own. Harjo is from the Muscogee Nation, and I'm certain that many of the mythological references here have gone over my head. The beauty of the imagery, however, remains, and it's folded into narratives about everyday life - although as I type that, I'm aware that for many there's probably no difference between the mythic and the everyday. For me there is, generally, although I'm in the middle of reading a book on island biogeography which talks about the construction of a myth around Darwin and his finches - a story which I've always held as true - so perhaps, in some strange convoluted way, there's a point of similarity after all.