At Geronimo's Grave

Geronimo is probably the second-best-known Indigenous name, after Pocahontas. But the reality of the great Apache warrior's fate is little remembered. In At Geronimo's Grave, Armand Garnet Ruffo uses the Apache warrior's life as a metaphor for the lives of many of the abandoned Indigenous people on this continent.

With affection and concern, award-winning poet Armand Garnet Ruffo uses straightforward language to examine the lives and experiences of people who struggle to make their way in a world that has no place for them, starting with Geronimo himself. Feared for his once-great prowess, the warrior horseman was reduced to wearing a top hat and riding in an early Ford Model T car, a grim caricature of assimilation into the dominant culture. The bitter irony of this fate echoes through the personal poems in At Geronimo's Grave. This collection is a love letter to a people trapped in the slow-moving vehicle of another culture that is taking them nowhere.