SOURCE: "Retrieving the Melodies of the Heart," in The Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 10, No. 3, May-June, 1990, p. 9.

Gish is an American educator and critic of Choctaw and Cherokee descent. In the following review, he favorably assesses The Invisible Musician.

Mesquakie poet Ray A. Young Bear is generally acknowledged by poets, critics, and students of American Indian literature as the nation's foremost contemporary Native American poet. His first book, Winter of the Salamander, brought together a powerful grouping of Young Bear's poetry which had appeared first in relatively obscure literary journals and then, with more and more frequency, in leading national publications.

Soon after the appearance of Salamander, academic organizations and their annual conferences scheduled sessions on Young Bear and his startlingly atavistic yet modern word way. Courses in American Indian literature soon adopted his book, and, in the wake of such national accolades and attention, Young Bear was invited to...