By Louise Erdrich (above), published in Orion Magazine’s beautiful 2017 compilation of essays “Women and Standing Rock”

Resist the thought that you may need a savior,
or another special being to walk beside you.
Resist the thought that you are alone.
Resist turning your back on the knife
of the world’s sorrow,
resist turning that knife upon yourself.
Resist your disappearance Continue reading “ADVICE TO MYSELF #2: RESISTANCE” →

From Louise Erdrich in Original Fire: Selected and New Poems

Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.