A poet reads to a room full of youths who seem to have some residual resentment to the poet. The poet doesn’t mind — he understands, and calls on the listeners to share in the power of focused anger, to make it a motivation for their creativity.

Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is the author of The Feathered Heart (Michigan State University Press, 1998) and Exploding Chippewas (Triquarterly Books, 2002). He lives in Chicago, where he teaches at DePaul University.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Mark Turcotte’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.