SOURCE: A review of Old Shirts & New Skins, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 240, No. 5, February 1, 1993, p. 87.

In the following review of Old Shirts & New Skins, the critic praises Alexie's verse for "capturing the full range of modern Native [American experience."]

[In Old Shirts and New Skins, Alexie] emerges as a Native poet of the first order. He captures the full range of modern Native experience, writing both with anger and with great affection and humor. Detailing the continuing deprivation and colonialism, the poet pointedly asks, "Am I the garbageman of your dreams?" and defines Native "economics": "risk" is playing poker with cash and then passing out at powwow. Focusing on the Leonard Peltier case, Alexie exposes the ineffectualness of both white Indian-lovers and some Native leaders in "The Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool": "Peltier goes blind in Leavenworth … / and Brando sits, fat and naked, by the Pacific ocean. There...