Baptism of Desire Book

Louise Erdrich is such an important voice in American Literature, mostly based on her novels. This book of poems, relatively early in her career, is her fifth book. Reading it now still brings feelings of the disturbing strangeness and spiritual feelings of everyday life. I will admit that the short story, "Potchikoo's Life After Death", was especially mesmerizing with its narrative structure more like one growing from indigenous roots than European narratives. In her poetry as well, Erdrich challenges the everyday world of Christianity:
"Snake of hard hours, you are my poetry.
According to God, your place is low,
under Adam's heel, but as for me,
a woman shaped from a secondary bone,
who cares if you wrap my shoulders?
Who cares if you whisper? Who cares
if the fruit is luscious? Your place
is at my ear."
She obviously speaks directly, making this book of poems almost 30 years old worth picking up.