Sherman Alexie

I am beginning to notice a trend in Sherman Alexie's poetry. Besides the basketball, heritage, death, and ghosts themes, I am beginning to see a theme concerning family. Alexie presents us with "Grandmother, Porcupine, Traffic" talking about Big Mom, possibly his grandmother, but that poem is just one in a section entitled "Father and Farther." Several of the poems are about his father or like "Death of the Landlord," Alexie is adamant that "this is not about my father." The next section, "Sister Fire, Brother Smoke" also uses familial terms in the title. He talks about brother, sister, and father in "Elegies," mother and sister in "Fire as Verb and Noun," brother and sister are mentioned again in "Sonnet: Tattoo Tears," and the last poem of the section that bears the same title as the entire section repeatedly mentions a sister dying and seeing his sister in every fire.

I think that this trend not only shows how much family means to Alexie, but I think it is also an attempt to bring the reader in and get him or her emotionally involved. I also believe that the familial names and terms are being applied in places to the people of Alexie's tribe to emphasize those ties and losses in a greater way.