Ancient Acid Flashes Back: Poems
Louis may be the best vernacular poet in America. He uses harsh, slangy, obscene language with unself-conscious mastery and the authenticity of coming from harsh and obscene circumstances. A self-characterized "half-breed," Louis grew up and has often lived amid the squalid poverty of Indian reservations that he has pondered in several collections, most recently inCeremonies of the Damned(1997). His new book recalls one of his generation's defining experiences, the hippie "summer of love" and its aftermath in late-'60s San Francisco. He was there, scoring drugs and chicks, including the Chinese-American girl he fell for, who became a heroin addict well before they parted. Every punchy, profane line of these poems rings true, in the youthful idealism they recount as well as in their scary stories of street scrapes and bad trips. Louis leaves no doubt that he was in love--a goofy love, perhaps, but sensual and searing, too--and that the hippies' "illusory hope for a better world / has lasted inside him for thirty years." If you were there but can't remember the '60s,^Bthey come back powerfully in Louis' bitter, affectionate poems.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved