"Victor Charlo can still see the elderly Salish woman quickly move her hand near her waist, as if abruptly drawing an invisible dash in the air.
“Put Sey,” she would say in the Salish language - “Good Enough.”
The phrase now graces the title of Charlo's first book of poetry, a collection of work from a 70-year-old man who has been writing poems for more than 30 years.
“He's been a poet forever, since I was a kid,” said April Charlo, one of his four children. She often reads and translates her dad's poems from English to Salish. “It's probably going to be the best experience of my life,” she said.
She will be with her father this week for a book launch and poetry readings.
Charlo will debut “Put Sey,” on Wednesday at the University of Montana's Davidson Honors College at 4:30 p.m. On Saturday, he will participate in an 11 a.m. reading at the Holiday Inn Parkside during the Montana Festival of the Book. Finally, the poet will share in the honoring of a theater to bear his name at the Salish Kootenai College, an event scheduled for Oct. 30.
Even though he is celebrating the publication of his first book, Charlo seems to take the most pride in three-word phrase he crafted - Two Eagle River. He came up with those words more than 30 years ago during a competition to name an alternative grade school on the Flathead Reservation."
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