Poetry is revolutionary. It must be to survive.
--Lance Henson (Cheyenne)
In Sherman Alexie's novel Indian Killer, Marie Polotkin, a Spokane college student, explains to her Wannabe-Indian professor, for whom the Ghost Dance stands as a "beautiful, and ultimately desperate act," that Wovoka's vision was more than mere "symbolism" and "metaphorical beauty": "Don't you see? If the Ghost Dance had worked, you wouldn't be here. You'd be dust" (313). Indeed, though the Ghost ...
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