M.L. Smoker

M.L. Smoker is a teacher and
administrator on the Fort Peck Indian
Reservation in Montana, home of the
Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She is
an enrolled member of both tribes.
She holds a BA from Pepperdine
University and an MFA from the
University of Montana and also
attended the University of Colorado
and UCLA. Among her honors were
the Richard Hugo Scholarship at
Montana and the Arianna and
Hannah Yellow Thunder Scholarship
at UCLA. Another Attempt At Rescue
is her first book of poems.

This is a first poetry collection by Native-American poet M.L. Smoker. "Hanging Loose,"
the long-time publisher of the acclaimed Native-American writer Sherman Alexie, has a
reputation of publishing an eclectic group of up and coming poets. In "Another Attempt At
Rescue," Smoker deals with one of the great themes of American literature; that being the
assimilation into the mainstream society, and the strong pulls of the Old World. In this
case M.L. Smoker feels the constant pull of the tribe, the reservation, even when she is
far from home.

This is a struggle many an immigrant had to face. The same is true of Native-Americans,
whose land was taken from them for the price of cheap costume jewelry, or a treaty
written in very small print. They found themselves foreigners in their own land. In her
poem "Letter to Richard Hugo," Smoker addresses the late poet with a love letter to her
native land after a foray in the larger world: "Dick: The reservoir on my end of the state is
great/ for fishing. Some of the banks are tall and jagged, others/ are more patient,/ taking
their time as they slope into/ rocky beaches/... I almost/ thought of not returning to finish
the writing program/ you began with your own severe desire for language, But I/ did. And
now I am at the end. Already though, I'll admit/ to you, I'm thinking of home. I have been
this whole/time." (13).

In "Untitled," I am reminded of Henry Roth's character in "Call It Sleep," a small Jewish
boy, and son of immigrants, who traverses the world of lyrical Yiddish to guttural English.
Here Smoker seeks to reconcile her conflicted tongues to no avail: "I witnessed a Grizzly
bear tear into a fallen tree trunk/ with muscle, claw and all the force/ of her own body... I
find that certain words arrive first:/ in the woods heavy with near darkness/ she could only
be known by one name-- wakan sija/ as in instinct:"the bad holy thing."/ In this passage
that exists between word / and thought/ I have been forced/ to learn a great deal of the
collapse/ of one language upon another./ I offer up many explanations for this/ too-often
conflicted tongue, never/arriving at any shape of reconciliation." (36).

What I like most about this collection is that Smoker makes the reader understand what
she misses with vivid images, rich language, and real longing.

> Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass./ 2005

Check out this article on Mandy from The Great Falls Tribune on June 21, 2005.

Wolf Point poet's book earns national acclaim

Mandy Broaddus knows the power of poetry.

When her mother died seven years ago, writing was one of her greatest comforts, an expression of "grieving,

mourning

and figuring things out for myself," said Broaddus, 30, of Wolf Pointon the Fort Peck Reservation.

Now Broaddus' work is touching others as her first book, "Another Attempt at Rescue," earns acclaim on the

national

poetry scene.

Last week Broaddus was invited to give a reading at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian

Washington, D.C. She will share her work there Sept. 24.

Last month she traveled to New York City for a book-signing organized by her publisher, "Hanging Loose Press."

Broaddus, who writes under the pen name "M.L. Smoker," said she draws her themes from the local landscape,

family

relationships and her Assiniboine and Sioux heritage.

"A lot of my poems kind of belong to this area of the state," she said.

Broaddus wrote the book's title poem, "Another Attempt at Rescue," as America headed toward war with Iraq.

"I was thinking about that and I was thinking about this reservation and other reservations and problems we

encounter

and how we work through them individually and as a community," she said.

Broaddus is an administrator at the Frazer School and teaches a writing course at the Fort Peck Community

College.

She earned a bachelor of arts degree at Pepperdine University in 1997 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry

from the

University of Montana in 2003.

In the realm of writing, poems hold a special kind of power, she said.

"They give people a lot of room to explore their emotions and their heart."

The book's title poem, "Another Attempt at Rescue," is available on the Academy of American Poets Web site at

www.poets.org/npmbookdetail.php/prmMID/18912. The site also has purchasing information.

“M.L. Smoker’s poems are tough, funny, magical, but not in a goofy way. This is blue-collar
magic. Unemployed magic. Living on government cheese magic. I highly recommend this
collection.” —Sherman Alexie

“Not many poets can give vast to vast land, tall, cold mountains, powerful wind everlasting.
Mandy Smoker does, and more: she lends the power of the land to human experience, and
makes their inextricable binding clear.” —Paula Gunn Allen

“These poems are like a collective soul, each poem so elemental, so true, together they are
somehow greater than the thing itself—not just mythical, but the voice of myth itself. For
me, there is no other way to describe this collection. Another Attempt at Rescue is a
masterwork, the genius spark, the fire.” —Debra Magpie Earling

“Mandy Smoker’s Another Attempt at Rescue is an impressive first book though, in truth,
there is nothing here that reminds me of a first book. This is the work of an accomplished
and mature poet with a rare and first-rate mind. There are some stunning and memorable
poems here.” —Jim Harrison

Borrowing Blue

I’m not the painter here. I leave that to you, but blue

is the color of my father’s camping cup, left tonight

on the Formica counter. This pen I am writing with.

And the beaded moccasins and belt I danced in

before my mother died.

My grandmother had made these for her as a child –

spelling out in blue beads on blue bead

each of our names, our collective history

in an invisible pattern only we would recognize.

Not the blue of Montana sky either,

not that at all, but the pulse of lake water lapping

at your ankles, the temperature rising

as a storm gathers on the plains.

The push and pull of forgiveness.

I’m already thinking of leaving again.

Did I tell you this? How can I speak of this wind,

how it has no color, no sense,

no guilt. It makes me feel even more lonely

than I would ever let on.

I’m guessing you figured this much already.

(We will never stop missing the, will we,

the parent each of us has lost.)

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what I would see

in the paintings if I were to visit you.

I like to think there would be some kind of end

to the blue, a visual end to what is never

adequate: blue flame, blue ovary,

blue lung. See how easily we fail?

How can we believe that our secrets are in good hands –

yours resting at the bottom of Flathead Lake, mind held

in a small leather suitcase beneath the stairs.

I have not worn those moccasins or that belt for over

six years now. We should both be ashamed.

Look at us. Look, as the grey fog

settles into your streets outside, how the near-white

canvases wait. You almost didn’t notice again.

Just like I almost didn’t notice the wind

dying down for evening.

So yes, let’s call it Montana blue, the vanishing point.

Maybe this is the real reason I have never learned

to trust in color. How can you take back

the kind of blue you’ve been dreaming of—trust

it will make something unhappen—

if it is the same blue you’re made of.

Subsurface

Any map is confusing by design, useless. The few

remaining antelope taste ruin in the watershed long

before anyone thinks of eggshells fractured in the boiling

pan. We are bound to such places, ankle to barbed wire,

wrist to the halo of sky moving farther and farther

north. (No one remembers when they last saw the

preacher and his wife who clung to the wire cutters with

abalone knuckles.) How can we rest when all night long,

just a few miles toward the border, an invisible god’s

hand keeps the iron hammers going, violent birds

snatching up the last of the liquid grain. Jaws clench in

sleep as the Morse code of machine taps sets the clocks

to an hour when our tongues have vanished and we

must beg with our eyes for another drop. Men we have

never seen before, their fingertips marked permanently

by spoiled silver ink, wait patiently as we grow new arms

and reach for their pens again.