Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories Book

Luci Tapahonso was just named the Navajo Poet Laureate, and Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories tells why that honor was given to her. This is a brilliant book. Both the poetry and the stories reach into everyday Navajo life and illuminate the closeness of Navajo families and the song of who the Navajo are as a people. The poetry takes common day events and shapes them into stories and intense moments of humanity that creates laughter, sadness, gratefulness, joy. Reading this book, I felt better about myself as a human being upon the planet earth. The Navajo are a poor people economically, but immensely rich in the qualities that grow out of relationships between people and the land in which they live. The stories in the book are short and more like prose poems than short stories, but they shine in the depth of the individual histories they illuminate. Tapahonso is a master craftsman whose craft is so skilled that it transforms itself into art. If you read no other book of poetry this year, this is the book I would recommend.