Description
In, At Geronimo's Grave, Armand Garnet Ruffo, who was born and raised in northern Ontario, draws upon his Ojibwe heritage to discuss the reality of Geronimo, the great Apache warrior's fate which is little remembered. In, At Geronimo's Grave, Armand Garnet Ruffo uses the Apache warrior's life as a metaphor for the lives of many of the abandoned Indigenous people on this continent. He uses straightforward language to examine the lives and experiences of people who struggle to make their way in a world that has no place for them, starting with Geronimo himself. Feared for his once-great prowess, the warrior horseman was reduced to wearing a top hat and riding in an early Ford Model T car, a grim caricature of assimilation into the dominant culture. The bitter irony of this fate echoes through the personal poems in At Geronimo's Grave. This collection is a love letter to a people trapped in the slow-moving vehicle of another culture that is taking them nowhere.