• Native American Studies

Louis is a poet, novelist, newspaper editor and lecturer. In his works he employs an incisive blend of satire, storytelling and bleak realism. He presents a picture of contemporary Native American life that is often as hilarious and sympathetic as it is unsettling and provocative. In his poetry Louis does not employ any traditional forms or conventions and usually resorts to free verse, as most contemporary Native poets do. Louis's creative work continues a tradition of scathing Native humor that runs from Alexander Posey to Thomas King to Sherman Alexie. The latter author, in fact, considers Louis one of the major influences on his own writing.
Although much of his writing is autobiographical and the overall theme of his work is personal survival, Louis's books encompass themes characteristic of contemporary Native fiction in general: alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, racism, violence, urban Indians, exploitation of Indians, and search for one's identity. As do other ethnic poets, Louis needs to confront his inheritance of the colonial past and present - conquest, segregation, assimilation - and the current conditions arising from that inheritance. As a result a justifiable anger fills many of Louis's writings.