Festival to honor James Welch's poetry, influence on generations of writers

Welch's poetry and his novels have both been influential on several generations of writers, so they wanted to center a conversation on his work in verse.

The speakers for the second James Welch Native Lit Fest for July 15-18 in Missoula include Stephen Graham Jones, whose latest historical horror novel, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” is a New York Times best-seller. Another keynote speaker, Arthur Sze, is the current U.S. poet laureate and a National Book Award winner. Paul Chaat Smith recently retired after a quarter-century as curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

The festival launched in 2022 in Missoula with a focus on fiction writers, and for its second installment after a three-year hiatus, they’re focusing some key panels on Welch’s poetry and Native American poets as a whole.

Welch, who died in 2003 at age 62, published one collection of poetry, “Riding the Earthboy 40,” in 1971. After that, he spent the majority of his career on fiction. HolyWhiteMountain said “Earthboy” is Welch’s most surreal and angriest work, with unique and angular use of language.

“You can say things very directly in poetry, in a way that it's harder to do in fiction,” he said.

The writer’s spouse, Lois Welch, who was director of UM’s Creative Writing Program, said in the news release that he would be happy his collection has had this lasting influence.

“Jim wrote ‘It is through stories that we live,’ meaning that engrossing, instructing stories place us ‘within the great scheme of things,’ transforming us as we listen,” she said in a festival news release. “Poetry is the shorter intense form, fiction the longer. Jim would be thrilled at the writers joining this year’s festival, delighted that his ‘Earthboy’ poems are still in print, still inspiring readers.”

If you go

The James Welch Native Lit Fest is set for July 15-18 at venues around Missoula including the Missoula Art Museum, the Missoula Children’s Theatre, and the Roxy Theater. To see a schedule and the full list of panels, go to jameswelchfestival.org. Events are free except for the movie screening.

This year, they’re adding daytime workshops with high school students from the Blackfeet and Flathead Indian reservations. That will be taught by dg nanouk okpik, an Iñupiaq poet and alum of Salish Kootenai College. She won an American Book Award for her book, “Corpse Whale.”

This year, they’ve also invited Blackfeet artists to show and talk about their work. They include ledger artists John Isaiah Pepion, Terran Last Gun and Evelyn Mikayla Martin.

The festival is going to screen “Winter in the Blood,” a 2012 film adaptation of Welch’s novel. It was directed by Alex and Andrew Smith, who were family friends of the Welches.

Among the cast is an early film appearance by Lily Gladstone, who grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation and studied at the University of Montana. It will be paired with Q&As with special guests and a screening of “Paving the Way,” a short documentary about the effort to build skateparks around Montana, including the reservations. It was produced by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who grew up on the Hi-Line, and has helped fundraise and lead those efforts, and screened at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February.

The festival’s first entry back in 2022 brought in authors like Louise Erdrich and Tommy Orange for panel discussions where they could talk about writing and art like they do amongst themselves, with an audience listening in.

This year, there will be panels and workshops on poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art. Jones is well known enough that he’ll have a moderated talk to himself at MCT, since he has a dedicated fan base. 

“Wherever he is, they kind of show up in droves,” HolyWhiteMountain said.

Heather Cahoon, a poet and professor at UM, will give a keynote address.

At a reception at Radius Gallery, Lois Welch will give a talk about “Riding the Earthboy 40” and Welch’s poetry as a whole.

Sze has taught at the Institute for American Indian Arts for years and will speak on a panel with some of his former students.

“Many, if not most of the major Native poets working right now were all his students,” HolyWhiteMountain said.