SOURCE: Tvedten, Benet. Review of Old Shirts & New Skins. North Dakota Quarterly 61, no. 3 (summer 1993): 200-201.

In the following review, Tvedten evaluates Alexie's Old Shirts & New Skins.

First of all, this book of poems is another entry in the Native American Literature Series published by the University of California, Los Angeles. Like the previous eight, it is an attractive work. The cover drawing and illustrations throughout the book are by Elizabeth Woody, an accomplished Native American artist and poet.

The tribal people of this country have often been compared with those of another land because of the literary consequences of having learned the language of their conquerors and exploiters. The English must surely have been shamed when the Irish began writing in the language imposed upon them. When I read Adrian C. Louis's excellent foreword in Old Shirts and New Skins, the Irish came to mind. “It is so...