Columbus Day

In this short but brilliant book, Jimmie Durham uses the page to describe, de-mystify, humanize, and complicate the way the average European-American understands American history and cutlure, Native Americans and the First Nations of the U.S. and the Americas (and Cherokees in particular) and challenges the reader to understand their own relationship to power. Some of the essays are geared toward European-Americans, some toward all-encompassing audiences, some toward Native American audiences and some simply to himself. Whatever your identity, background, or position in American society, Columbus Day challenge you to understand yourself and American society in a new and more complete way. Durham also offers invaluable insights from the perspective of a nuanced person who has filled many roles in his lifetime (artist, activist, writer, family member) and who has always had to examine their own identity, who has experienced disappointment, betrayal, and identity politics in a way that allows him to offer comfort and perspective to those who have experienced the same. Not only are his writings challenging and personally engaging, they are beautiful, succinct, erudite, and innovative in their style. Durham has a unique and fully self-aware style in the way he uses his pages. His poetry is fresh in its honesty and lack of arrogance too often found in poetry, and are well-worth reading for nothing else other than their rhyme schemes, innovative semantics, and complex tones. The book itself is short and very easy to both read and be challenged by. A great read for the bus or subway, as well as pre-bedtime reading or even in a single sitting. A truly important book and should be a part of anyone's library who wishes to be well-read, who is interested in art or activism (Jimmie Durham is both an artist and an activist in addition to an accomplished writer, poet, and essayist), bringing out the voices and experiences of those who have been silenced in the telling of American history, Native American studies, Critical Race studies, or simply reading books that can challenge, heal, and engage you. Do not let the serious topics of the book dissuade you from buying it. Before I read this book I had never read anything by Jimmie Durham or really anything about the majority of his topics (I have since bought anything by Jimmie Durham I can get my hands on)- but the book quite simply changed my life and my outlook on the world in an important way. The book is very easy to read, enjoyable, and a must-own!!!