Ghost Dance Poems

With a title that pays homage to the Native American Ghost Dance movements of the mid- and late-19th century, this collection questions (and manifests) the age-old human tendency to call on history and magic for rescue from the apparently hopeless mess of the present. The poems comment on our shared means of connecting with powers larger than fairy tales and other fantasies to bolster our spirits and to stave off evil our own and others ; the games we run to exploit others or to survive exploitation; and perplexing riddles about human nature and our mostly unknowable motives.