Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874173523 ISBN 13: 9780874173529

Verlag: University of Nevada Press, 2000

Ancient Acid Flashes Back is the true story of one who was there—--and remembers--—through the cloying marijuana haze, around the jagged edges of L.A. cross tops and crystal cranks, on wild windowpane trips, in the sweetness and sweat of tangled young bodies, in the stench of stale vomit and fresh garbage, in the raucous laughter of desperation and fear. In this remarkable collection of poems, Adrian Louis, a member of the Paiute tribe, beams us back to the Haight during the Summer of Love and beyond on an inimitable tour of the wild side of youth, freedom, and possibility.

From the Publisher:

"Ancient Acid Flashes Back is not a random collection of poems, but a single long poem, a meditation on American history observed through the prism of a young half-breed's odyssey to the Haight in the days when it was a prime American metaphor. It is, indeed, a kind of small epic--not a song of self-indulgent complaint, but a Homeric journey downward into the roots of our national consciousness. The news Louis finds is not good, but it is bracing, and, I think, true. There is a kind of strange beauty in the rugged, unsentimental honesty of this book."--Bill Holm

"There is no border in these poems between the politics of the heart and the politics of the land. The music that fills this body of stories is direct and ancient. Still, it sounds like no one else's."--Andrei Codrescu

"I've admired the poems of Adrian C. Louis for many years. No other American poet sings better than he does. No American poet knows how to grieve or rage better than he does. Ancient Acid Flashes Back is a beautiful and terrifyingly true book."--Thomas Lux

About the Author:

Adrian C. Louis was born and raised in Nevada and is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. He teaches at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He has numerous books of poetry and stories and awards to his credit.