Book: Lace by Sherman Alexie / general Sherman Alexie squee

I have to say that Sherman Alexie is clearly the dude. He writes really really well in adult fiction, young adult fiction, and poetry. These are not the same animal. Most novels by poets are a bit weird and most poems by novelists are a bit staid or a bit rough or a bit flat or...something. I have just checked Lace, a collection of his poetry, out of the library and it impresses me a lot on technical grounds. It's also enjoyable. The two don't necessarily go together, especially in poetry, but here they do.

How freaking good do you have to be to write a poem in repeating full and half rhyme structure, a long, stanza-ed poem no less, and have me not notice that it rhymes until 2/3 of the way through?

The answer is, really freaking good.

Also, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian gave more exposure to Ellen Forney, a cartoonist whose work I've loved in the various "female cartoonist anthologies" that are practically the only place I've seen her work. The trend for good cartoonists to add stuff to books cannot go too far to please me (Jasper Fforde's book with the pages by some of my favorite folks from the web also pleased).

But back to why Sherman Alexie rocks: the movie made from one of his books doesn't even suck! How often does that happen? Smoke Signals, unlike most movies made from books, is actually quite good.

(Sorry for the disjointed. I am feverish. General intent: Sherman Alexie == very good.)