Velie, Alan R. :

Alan R. Velie is Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.

Library Journal greeted the original edition of this anthology with high praise, saying "this is a superb collection with well-written introductory essays, excellent examples of various literary forms, and translations accessible to the layman, student and scholar." Now Alan Velie has prepared an exciting revised edition with a contemporary slant.
Along with the traditional, primarily oral, literature of tales, songs, memoirs, and oratory, the new anthology offers a large selection of poetry and fiction by American Indian women, including a excerpt from Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and poetry by Paula Gunn Allen, Rayna Green, Joy Harjo, nila northSun, and others. There is also, of course, a rich array of works by contemporary Indian men from different regions, such as N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Gerald Vizenor, and Maurice Kenny.
The editor has selected works representative of the variety of American Indian literature of different periods and regions - from the prehistoric Delaware epic Walam Olum and the origin myth of the Acoma Pueblo, through the memoirs and oratory of the early contact period, to the songs and short stories of today's rural and urban Indians.