- [Narrator] Poetry
Out Loud is a contest
that allows students to
learn about great poetry.
Caroline Huber of Minot
was North Dakota's
2016 Poetry Out Loud champion.
Here, she recites the
bone-chilling poem,
Windigo, by Louise Erdrich
- You knew I was coming
for you, little one,
when the kettle
jumped into the fire.
Towels flapped on the hooks
and the dog crept off.
My third poem was
Windigo by Louise Erdrich
and it's about the
monster, the Windigo,
from Native American mythology.
And that one was
just a different poem
from all the others
I'd looked at.
All the poems in there,
pretty stereotypical love
and all these soft emotions
and then there's
this poem that's dark
and it's about
starvation and being cold
in this warm world and wanting
something warm again.
I ended up picking that
because it was so different
and I could explore
different areas
than I could with
my other poems.
Windigo by Louise Erdrich.
For Angela,
the Windigo is a
flesh-eating wintry demon
with a man buried
deep inside of it.
In some Chippewa stories,
a young girl
vanquishes this monster
by forcing boiling
lard down its throat,
thereby releasing the human
at the core of ice.
You knew I was coming
for you, little one,
when the kettle
jumped into the fire,
towels flapped on the hooks
and the dog crept off, groaning,
to the deepest
part of the woods.
In the hackles of dry brush,
a thin laughter started up.
Mother scolded the food warm
and smooth in the pot
and called you to eat.
But I spoke in the cold trees.
New one, I have come for you.
Child hide and lie still.
The sumac pushed sour red
cones through the air.
Copper burned in the raw wood.
You saw me drag toward you.
"Oh, touch me," I murmured,
and licked the
soles of your feet.
You dug your hands into
my pale melting fur.
I stole you off,
a huge thing in my
bristling armor.
Steam rolled from
my wintry arms,
each leaf shivered from
the bushes we passed
until they stood naked,
spread like the
clean spines of fish.
Then your warm hands
hummed over and
shoveled themselves
full of the ice and the snow.
I would darken and
spill all night running
until at last morning
broke the cold earth,
and I carried you home.
A river
shaking in the sun.
(light acoustic strum)
- [Announcer] Prairie
Mosaic is sponsored by
the Minnesota Arts and
Cultural Heritage Fund
with money from the vote
of the people of Minnesota
on November 4th, 2008.
The North Dakota
Council on the Arts,
and by the members
of Prairie Public.
