SOURCE: Stocking, Marion K. “Books in Brief.” The Beloit Poetry Journal 43, no. 3 (spring 1993): 45-6.

In the following review, Stocking offers a brief review of I Would Steal Horses and Old Shirts & New Skins.

Sherman Alexie has two new volumes: I Would Steal Horses (Slipstream) Old Shirts & New Skins, with illustrations by Elizabeth Woody (American Indian Studies Center, UCLA). The title poem of the UCLA book is in the Slipstream chapbook and exemplifies the almost surreal imaginative energy that distinguishes this enrolled Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian's work:

Love, listen before I wear the shirt that will separate us into flame and oxygen. 

The first audience for Alexie's work has to be Indian people, especially young people, who will find here someone who tells the truth about what it means to be Indian. The poet bears a heavy responsibility for lighting a path between an ancient and powerful cultural tradition...