Honors College hosts award-winning author

KALAMAZOO, Mich.--Celebrated American Book Award winner and poet Gordon Henry Jr. will perform live with founding members of music group Northwoods Improvisors at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, on the campus of Western Michigan University.

The event in Room 1730 of the Lee Honors College features Mike Gilmore on the guitar and percussion and Mike Johnston on bass and flute. Henry will present Chippewa-style chants, recitation and storytelling set to the backdrop of complementary musical improvisation.

There is no charge to attend this event and no registration.

Gordon Henry Jr.

Henry is an Anishinaabe and enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. He is also a professor of English and editor of the American Indian Studies Series at Michigan State University.

He earned a doctoral degree from the University of North Dakota and held a Fulbright Lectureship in Spain in 1994. The author of several books, including "Outside White Earth" (1986) and "The Failure of Certain Charms" (2007), his performance focuses on contemporary Native American storytelling and culture.

His novel, "The Light People" (1994), won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Henry relays his lived experience and heritage with prose and free verse in "The Failure of Certain Charms," which has been described by Heidi Erdrich of the Salt Publishing website as a “dreamscape charmed by powerful songs.”

For more information, contact Devin Jordan at (269) 387-3230 or devin.l.jordan@wmich.edu.

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