I call myself the Silence Between Two Rivers because I inherit two large streams of humanity. The stories of our interconnections are not well told, for the most part. And the pressure to choose one side or another of my identity is real. And tedious. And not nearly as interesting to me as the territory in between.
Tag: TRC
Beginning and Beginning and Beginning
Today, they took the statue down in Kjipuktuk, or Halifax town in Mi’kmaki, mapped as Nova Scotia along the stormy Atlantic Ocean Where did it begin? This need to raise up monuments to men who call for deaths of other men and women and children and ways and lay a bounty on our scalps…
Turtle Island Easter Prayer
O Lord, renew me this body, this heart, this mind this soul O you Good Spirits you Saints who intercede budge aside, if you don’t mind just enough to let me speak to Manitowak i do not know whose names and specialities were not passed down Holy Mother, some of your children are standing in…
A Rant for Rick Mercer: The Problem With Gord Downie
Hey, Rick, Been listening in on your rants for years, as we all do. Now I’ve got one for you, coming from a place of Cantankerous Love, on the problem with Gord Downie. The problem isn’t Gord Downie. He’s doing something brave, meaningful and relevant with his last remaining days among us. That is laudable….
Day 15: Hey Margaret
it is okay to say you were too busy writing oryx and crake to point at the indigenous connections there it is okay if you were too busy addressing feminism to consider how it is no accident that it arose here, where we have always had agency and where the initial arrivals from europe…
Survivor Poem: Unreconciling
Today, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation opened in Winnipeg. Here’s a poem for the occasion, fresh from my fingers, inspired by reading about Phil Fontaine’s speech tonight. Survivor Poem: Unreconciling They said they were bringing God, but they brought Demons, who chase us down the generations. We fight with love and light. We…
Skirt, The Issue: A Moment to Address the Headdress
I go out with the regalia I’ve earned – usually, a pen and book of some sort, because I’m a writer. I know that having the pen and book doesn’t make me a writer; using them does.
Skirt: The Issue – Part Two
Fist-Fight at the Sunrise Ceremony, circa 1996. Okay,there wasn’t any fist fight. Not out loud. Not with physical fists. But, i wager that, on some level, it looked just like a fist fight. What it was billed as was an interfaith ceremony. I was attending because i was working, at that time, with a Traditional…
The Poem of Silence: An Open Letter to Margaret Atwood, and all the Lions of Canadian Culture
Here’s an essay I wrote last November, and let lie. My thinking has evolved since then, as has the Canadian literary scene, not least via the publication of Kwe: Standing With Our Sisters, an anthology edited by Joseph Boyden and featuring a constellation of major Canadian lights including Ms. Atwood. I applaud all those involved,…
Resolutions: New Year in the New World, Turning New Leaves
Writerly New Year’s Resolutions for 2015: 1.Read Every History Sceptically, Not Just ‘Outsider’ Histories, Bearing in Mind the Ancient Provenance of Propaganda and Pure Old Wishful Thinking 2. Write, and Challenge Others to Write, More Realistic Histories… and 3. Write the Wildest, Most Daring Speculations, in pursuit of ways through these Interesting Times So, for…
Prairiepomes 