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September 5, 2003                    Barnes and Noble Slam in Sugarhouse

September 13-14, 2003            Great Salt lake Book Festival

September 27, 2003                  Salt Lake Slam with Featured Poet  'Luke Warm Water'

     September 5, 2003                    Barnes and Noble Slam in Sugarhouse 

           Rob Eckman, the Community Relations Manager at the Sugarhouse Barnes and Noble, has shown a consistent dedication to bringing performance poetry to the community. Every first Friday he hosts a Slam at 7:00 PM. Th Bookstore is located on the southeast corner of 2100 South and 1100 East. For more details, check out the event listing.

     September 13-14, 2003            Great Salt lake Book Festival

           Saturday (9/13) 2:00 PM                   High Performance Poetry Works Hop

           Saturday (9/13) 3:00 PM                   Teen Poetry Slam

           Sunday (9/14)    2:00 PM                   All-Ages Poetry Slam

   September 27, 2003                  Salt Lake Slam with Featured Poet  'Luke Warm Water' 

"Poetry is when you can't afford the "v" in poverty"
- Doug Haning, Portland Jazz Musician

ARTICLE:

October 17, 2001 interview with Luke Warm Water in Indian Country Today
Newspaper.

http://www.indiancountry.com/?article=2671&style=printable


BIO:

Born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, KURT SCHWEIGMAN a/k/a LUKE WARM
WATER is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe.
Luke has been a featured poet and participated in Poetry Slam venues across
the United States, England and Germany and was a member of the 2000 Tulsa
Slam team.
He has conducted workshops for High Schools in; Portland OR, Austin TX, Long
Beach CA and Tubingen, Germany. He has also hosted a variety of poetry
reading events in Portland OR. LUKE has read his poetry on BBC radio in
England and radio/cable access in Portland OR. He also is an activist in the
efforts of American Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier, where he
organizes benefits and letter writing campaigns on his behalf.
LUKE has published 2 books ("Commods" and "John Wayne Shot Me") and a CD. He
currently resides in his hometown in Rapid City, SD.


ENDORSEMENTS:

"Luke Warm Water flows into cold landscapes . an entertaining and insightful
read."
-- Chris Eyre,
movie director of 'Smoke Signals' and 'Skins'


"Luke Warm Water writes poems for the disenfranchised, those who don't have
a voice. These poems are strong and true; they'll make you laugh and they'll
make you cry. More importantly, they'll make you think."
-- Adrian C. Louis,
author of the novel "Skins" which was made into
a movie (with the same name) directed by Chris Eyre


"Luke's writing and speaking ability are impressive.  His talent to force us
to smile inward and laugh out loud at our dark side is almost therapeutic.
Read and Weep through the pain and pleasure of his expressions."
-- Geraldine Goes-In-Center,
author of "Jokes Heard Around The Rez"


"At his best, Luke has a unique poetic voice, as if the Indian who had been
sitting silent for so long in a dark corner of the American conscience
suddenly stood up and began to speak words that were unflinchingly honest,
surprising, and hopeful, in a voice issuing from the place where humor and humility
meet."
-- Jack McCarthy,
Boston's "Best Standup Poet"
and author of "Grace Notes"


2 SAMPLE POEMS:

ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR PIZZA?

My Uncle Verlin was 40 years my senior
When questioned about his ethnicity he would respond
"Mostly Sioux Indin', part German,
and when it comes to the drink,
full-blooded Irishmn"
Uncle Verlin lived to be an old man
Raised on a ranch,
on a South Dakota Reservation by my grandparents
Uncle Verlin was a true cowboy Indian
Living out his life like the songs Hank Williams Sr.
and Woody Guthrie lamented about
Drifting
Drinking
Leaving a trail of about a 1/2 dozen pissed off ex-wives
And children, claimed and unclaimed
Along the path of his life

One night Uncle Verlin and I polished off a fifth of whiskey
Hungry we decided on pizza
He had seen the TV commercials of Pizza Hut
and wanted to eat at one for the first time

Upon our arrival
Teenage white kids were working
A white boy asked us from behind the counter
what we wanted to order
The biggest pizza you have with alot of extra cheese,
Uncle Verlin said
The white kid asked what he wanted for toppings
Uncle Verlin responded
Tiny little white men
The kid behind the counter looked bewildered asking 'what?'
Tiny tiny little white men on my pizza
'Uh sir we don't have that topping do you want a different topping?'
NO! I want only tiny tiny little white men on my pizza
The white boy behind the counter now looked shit scared
After that Uncle Verlin and I lost it
We laughed and laughed all the way home carrying our pizza
with Italian sausage topping

After all
Columbus was Italian
We thought it the next best choice for a pizza topping


JOHN WAYNE'S BULLET

Takansila (Grandfather)
John Wayne and his like
Shot us

Wounded we are recovering

Removing the bullets:
racism, genocide
                  booze, heroin
Big Macs, cable television
and so on

Nursing our torn flesh
Filling the holes with good medicine,
the circle of life
and the 7 sacred rights
Gun powder to cauterize our wounds
Building common sense
out of the spent metal casings

Keeping the extracted iron bullets
To construct an impervious tipi (lodge)
around our culture

Grandfather
John Wayne shot us
His followers are still shooting
With their hammer of greed cocked ready
With their chamber of oppression filled full
With their itchy ignorance finger on the trigger
With their barrel of assimilation aiming down on us

Grandfather
We won't steal John Wayne's gun away
That would make us just like him

So we are saving gun powder from their dud
cartridges to cauterize our wounds
Searching for their spent casings from the urban city
back alleys to the Reservation prairies
Keeping their extracted iron bullets from our wounds
to build the new sacred lodge

Grandfather (Takansila)
We will soon have saved enough
from American society's nothing

To finally protect our grandchildren
from John Wayne's bullet



Poems by Kurt Schweigman a.k.a. Luke Warm Water
copyright 2003