A Steady Brightness of Being is a moving collection of letters by celebrated Indigenous Voices from across Turtle Island (North America) with titles like “Dear Relative,” “Letter to Clouds,” and “Dreaming, Listening, Belonging.”
This is a particularly raw collection of poetry, I felt, the blank verse tumbling across the page in a cry to be read and felt.
Here, Skeet’s invasion of white space picks up where Eyes Bottle Dark left off and begins with the haunting image of a herd of 191 free-roaming horses found dead, thigh and neck-deep at a stock pond on the Navajo Nation, evaporated through extreme drought caused by “decades-long aggression by the United States and the changing climate”.
It is, for a lack of a better term, a living explanation, one which comes to the reader in images and feelings, delivered with a logic that is not static but flowing. For me, it was an exhausting but beautiful reading experience, intense and unforgettable.
Having returned to the literary scene with her third poetry collection, procession, vermette welcomes readers into the intricacy of genealogy, of honouring one’s ancestors and future kin while navigating one’s identity—both spiritually and through art.
The Strategy sets out a framework for the actions the University is taking and will take as it decolonizes itself and becomes a more equitable institution.
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable — and ongoing — project.
September 30th is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in so-called-Canada.
How many of us took “The Oka Crisis” at face value of media portrayal? Something along the line of lawless warriors in masks opposing the police in the summer of 1990? There were blockades and a militarized zone. Traffic inconveniences going into Montreal. You may recall that a golf course was set to dig up an Indigenous graveyard.
The behind the scenes story is more complex, and long-standing, with not a lot of overlap with what was told in the media.
Political poetry is crucial to the Palestinian literary tradition, embodied perhaps most famously by the poet and author Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), who was displaced as a child during the Nakba. This rich literary tradition also includes Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972), displaced to Lebanon in 1948 and assassinated by the Mossad at the age of 36. Many readers are familiar with Refaat Alareer, the poet and literature professor whose poem “If I Must Die” was circulated widely after his assassination in 2023. His colleague and close friend, Mosab Abu Toha, enters this impressive lineage with his debut collection, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear.
In 1962, a Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq family travels to Maine, where they have gone for many years to spend the summer picking berries. That year there are five children, the youngest, Ruthie, just four years old. One day, Ruthie and six-year-old Joe go off together to eat their lunch. Joe, distracted by something, leaves his sister on her own, and Ruthie goes missing.
Indigiqueerness is a lean, skinny book full of meat. At just under 100 pages, it is a comprehensive dive into who is Joshua Whitehead. And, through this vessel, what makes a storyteller?
Here are some recommendations from our editors to round out Indigenous History Month! These titles are written by, and about, Indigenous folks here on Turtle Island, but we encourage you to read Indigenous beyond so-called Canada as well!
Water is a basic human right. In 2024, in Canada, there are First Nations Communities that have been living under Boil Water Advisories for up to 28 years.
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