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Chris La Tray's new book 'Becoming Little Shell' explores identity, history, family and belonging

August 19, 2024

Growing up in western Montana, Chris La Tray always knew he was Native American, but he didn’t know much else about his identity or family history. 

The journey of a tribe, and an individual, seeking recognition and identity

August 16, 2024

What does it mean to “belong”? And how do we know when we feel it?

Reclaiming the Land: The push to re-indigenize Yellowstone National Park

August 9, 2024

“I think people need to recognize that Indigenous people have been here. We’ve always been here, and we are demanding greater visibility and that’s not going to change; we’re not going back from that."

‘A landless Indian’ discovers a sense of home and identity

August 8, 2024

In the memoir “Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home,” Chris La Tray weaves together personal and tribal history.

The Vision of Little Shell

August 1, 2024

How Ayabe-way-we-tung guided his tribe in the midst of colonization.

The Profane Reverence of Chris La Tray

June 19, 2024

An exploration of identity with Montana’s Poet Laureate.

Montana authors talk Tecumseh, Indigenous history

January 14, 2024

Chris La Tray, Métis storyteller and Montana’s 11th Poet Laureate, plans to travel to the state’s “far-flung areas”

November 12, 2023

Front Row Center co-host Lauren Korn speaks with Chris La Tray, Métis storyteller and Montana’s 11th Poet Laureate, about being called a poet and traveling to the state’s “far-flung areas” during his two-year tenure.

Listen:

00:00 / 08:31

The Laureate rocks

December 31, 2023

For a guy who writes an online newsletter called “An Irritable Métis,” the Frenchtown-raised La Tray comes off as pretty affable. He dresses casually in a plaid shirt, and pulls his long hair back; his beard blazes white in the middle. He looks like he could play bass in a metal band, which he does.

Q&A: Montana’s New Poet Laureate on Writing Without Rules

October 13, 2023

Chris La Tray is the author of two books that bend the rules of poetry and prose. He plans to bring this ideology to his tenure as Montana’s 2023-2024 Poet Laureate. 

Montana’s Poet Laureate Inspires Storytellers at UM

September 12, 2023

Chris La Tray was only a college freshman for a couple months before he packed up and left the University of Montana for Seattle with a buddy, inspired to depart his home state by schemes of becoming a rockstar.

It turns out fronting rock bands can be the consummate education for turning into one of the state’s most lauded writers.

Little Shell Tribal Citizen Chris La Tray Named 2023-2024 Montana Poet Laureate

August 15, 2023

Chris La Tray, a tribal citizen of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, has been named by Montana Governor Greg Gianforte for the term of 2023-2024. The announcement was made by the Montana Arts Council.

I was raised beside ‘Squaw Peak’ – it’s time to change America’s offensive place names

December 21, 2021

Settlers may not like to see Indigenous names returned to the landscape around us. But we were here first

How to Be a Good Ancestor

October 11, 2021

What does it even mean, to be “a good” ancestor? I think about it all the time, especially given the world my generation is poised to leave behind. Consider the Big Picture stuff, those global challenges like pandemic and climate change and white supremacy and colonialism. I know it's standard procedure to blame the Boomers for our ecological and social messes, but I haven't seen much being done by subsequent generations to address the downward spiral either.

Chris La Tray's Approach: One Sentence At A Time

August 29, 2019

The following highlights are from a conversation with Chris La Tray about his book, "One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large." 

Listen:

00:00 / 28:57
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