James Welch, Blackfeet and A'aninin Nations,
James Welch (November 18, 1940 – August 4, 2003), who grew up within the Blackfeet and A'aninin cultures of his parents, was an award-winning Native American novelist and poet, considered a founding author of the Native American Renaissance. His novel Fools Crow (1986) received several national literary awards.
In 1997 Welch received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.
James Welch was born in Browning, Montana on November 18, 1940. His father, a welder and rancher, was a member of the Blackfeet tribe and his mother, Rosella O'Bryan, a stenographer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and was a member of the Gros Ventre tribe; both also had Irish ancestry but had grown up within Native American cultures. As a child, Welch attended schools on the Blackfeet and Fort Belknap reservations. In 1958, James Welch graduated from Washburn High School in Minneapolis. For college, Welch attended the University of Montana, where he studied under the poet Richard Hugo, and in 1965, he graduated with his B.A. in liberal arts. Shortly after, Welch's first poem was published in the Montana poet issue of Visions International in 1967. He began his writing career, publishing poetry and fiction. His novels established his place in the Native American Renaissance literary movement. Welch also taught at the university. He also received Honorary Doctorates from Rocky Mountain College (1993) and the University of Montana (1997).
James Welch was also an internationally acclaimed writer and had a faithful following in Europe, and in 1995, Welch was given the Chevalier of the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters) by the French Cultural Ministry and was fully knighted by the French Government for his contributions to French culture. His novels were also translated into nine foreign languages.
Welch is commonly found in anthologies on Native American literature and is associated with the Native American literacy renaissance. The main goal of his writing was to give the readers a better understanding about the life of a Native American both good and bad. His rich imagery of landscape was never made up, but was based on the landscape of Montana. In his writing, the landscape was often times the main character. Welch had a unique style of writing from "'an outside observer with an insider's understanding' of Native American experience", this was because even though he was raised on the reservation as a young boy, he lived most of his life off of it. So he had a feeling of lack of close connection with the tribal community.
In 1968, James Welch married Lois Monk, a comparative literature professor at the University of Montana, and was head of the English Department there until her retirement. During his wife's sabbaticals they lived in France, Greece, Italy, and Mexico, which often times helped him finish writing his novels due to the feeling of isolation. Also, the two were regular financial donors to the Piegan Institute's language immersion program's efforts in continuing the restoration of the native Blackfeet language.
Welch also briefly attended Northern Montana College (now known as Montana State University-Northern). He taught English and writing at the University of Washington and at Cornell University.
In her introduction to the 2007 reprint of Winter in the Blood, fellow writer Louise Erdrich said: "It is a central and inspiring text to a generation of western regional and Native American writers, including me." This novel was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2012 and produced by Sherman Alexie.
In addition to his novels, Welch co-wrote with Paul Stekler the screenplay for Last Stand at Little Bighorn, the Emmy Award-winning documentary that was part of the American Experience, shown on PBS. Together they also wrote the history, Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians (1994).
Welch served on the Board of Directors of the Newberry Library D'Arcy McNickle Center in Chicago.
In addition to his literary work, Welch served as the Vice Chairman of the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole for ten years. Also he was a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, was a laborer, and an Upward Bound counselor.*
*www.wikipedia.com
Dreaming Winter
Don't ask me if these knives are real.
I could paint a king or show a map
the way home—to go like this:
Wobble me back to a tiger's dream
a dream of knives and bones too common
to be exposed. My secrets are ignored.
Here comes the man I love. His coat is wet
and his face is falling like the leaves,
tobacco stains on his Polish teeth.
I could tell jokes about him—one up
for the man who brags a lot, laughs
a little and hangs his name on the nearest knob.
Don't ask me. I know it's only hunger.
I saw that king—the one my sister knew
but was allergic to. Her face ran until
his eyes became the white of several winters.
Snow on his bed told him that the silky tears
were uniformly mad and all the money in the world
couldn't bring him to a tragic end. Shame
or fortune tricked me to his table, shattered
my one standing lie with new kinds of fame.
Have mercy on me, Lord. Really. If I should die
before I wake, take me to that place I just heard
banging in my ears. Don't ask me. Let me join
the other kings, the ones who trade their knives
for a sack of keys. Let me open any door,
stand winter still and drown in a common dream.*
James Welch
*http://mtpr.org/post/dreaming-winter#stream/0
IMIX
Kin 221: Red Cosmic Dragon
I endure in order to nurture
Transcending being
I seal the input of birth
With the cosmic tone of presence
I am guided by the power of life force.
By adopting a crystal for personal use, the crystalline frequencies can be absorbed by our psycho-sensory system while our brain waves and bio-psychic radiation are received and stored by the crystal.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2016.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Ajna Chakra (Gamma Plasma)
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