Don't break this circle Before the song is over Because all of our people Even the ones long gone Are holding hands. Sarian Stump (Round Dance)
The hardest part of writing a history is choosing its representatives. There are many seminal Native poets not included in this section, poets such as Marie Annharte Baker, Peter Blue Cloud, Wayne Keon, Emma LaRocque, Gordon Williams, Skyros Bruce, Beth Cuthand, to mention but a few. Jeanette Armstrong and Lally Grauer's new anthology Native Poetry in Canada (1960-2000) is an excellent reference point for anyone unfamiliar with First Nations poetry in Canada. Her anthology is meant not only to be read, but also to be used by teachers. Armstrong has collaborated with her non-native colleague, Lally Grauer, who describes her experience of teaching these poems: "Funny, vital, moving, disturbing; these poems ignite new perspectives and sudden insights in the classroom; they reframe history and make it relevant to the present" (xxii). The anthology provides an effective mix of poems about identity, the complexities of being Native in Canada, issues involving feminism, racism, ecology, the struggle to make one's voice heard, and poems involving post modern blurring of dream/reality, past/present, or the writing and rewriting of history: "Dear John" Marilyn Dumont writes to John A., "I'm still here and half breed,/ after all these years/you're dead, funny thing...and John, that goddamned railroad never made this a great nation,/ cause the railroad shut down/ and this country is still quarrelling over unity."
Jeanette Armstrong, like Thomas King discussing Green Grass Running Water, reveals that non-native readers won't get it all; that there is a kind of short hand at work in Native poetry, an inter-textuality beyond non-native readers, one that relates to historical indifference, ghettoizing, and the cultural differences in the aboriginal experience. Still, anthologies like this will help the non-native reader enter that world.
There are other, relatively newer anthologies of poetry and fiction that widen the scope of Aboriginal writing: The Colour of Resistance: A Contemporary Collection of Writing by Aboriginal Women (1993) edited by Connie Fife; Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English (1998) edited by Daniel David Moses & Terry Goldie; Sing with the heart of a bear: fusions of native and American poetry, 1890-1999 edited by Lincoln, Kenneth; Mi'kmaq Anthology (1997) edited by Rita Joe & Lesley Choyce, and Steal My Rage: New Native Voices (1995) by Joel T. Maki.
In Steal My Rage, David Redwolf briefly discusses traditional native values that are in opposition to non-native spirituality, philosophy and values, and accordingly in jeopardy in the contemporary urban, context. He lists native values that need to be upheld to stay on "the good road": values such as harmony with nature rather than its mastery, present time orientation rather than future orientation, co-operation rather than competition, sharing wealth rather than saving for the future, anonymity rather than individuality, "Indian time" (time flowing) rather than clock time, passivity rather than aggressivity, aspiring to the ways of the elders, rather than aspiring to personal success. He discusses the values of balance, acceptance, tolerance and respect. He reveals the centrality of the Circle of Life, "what hurts one thing in that circle hurts all things. Everything is joined together. This is why we do everything in a circle" (Maki 7).
Each of the anthologies opens a door, as Beth Cuthand does in her poem 'For all the Settlers who Secretly Sing," a poem written 'for Sharon Butala,' and, I imagine, her book The Perfection of the Morning, in which Butala charts her personal discovery of the prairie. Cuthand writes:
And you hold these questions in your heart not daring to ask the indigenous people who hold themselves aloof from settler voices chattering. You know they think no one listens and you understand the stillness it requires and the faith and the faith to hear the heart beat of the land as one solitude not two.
The First Nations of Canada have historically held out a welcoming hand; such anthologies are the same generous gesture.
Chief Dan George (1889-1981)
My people's memory reaches into the beginning of all things
Chief Dan George, named Teswahno, was born in British Columbia on the Burrard Reserve of Vancouver Island. At five, he was sent to a residential school, St. Paul's Boarding School, in North Vancouver, where, like so many of his generation, his name was changed and he was forbidden to speak his native language. As a young man he worked as a logger, then a longshoreman, until an accident ended that job and he became an entertainer and musician. He was made Chief of the Squamish Band in Burrard Inlet in 1951. In 1960, he worked in television, which led to his acting and later stage career.
Chief Dan George spent his life trying to bridge the gap between cultures, to allow his people to flourish, to "change with dignity and integrity" (Armstrong 2). He is best known for his acting career which garnered him many awards including an Oscar nomination for his role in Little Big Man. Partly because of his high profile acting success, partly because of his oratory skill, he also became an eloquent spokesperson for Native peoples. His published works include two books of poetry: My Heart Soars and My Spirit Soars, and two memoirs: You call Me Chief: Impressions of the Life of Chief Dan George, and Hilda Mortimer with Chief Dan George. As Armstrong points out in her anthology, his language was not "a speech simply intended to be understood, but foremost to be heard. It was delivered not only to move listeners with words and meaning, but to move them with the speaker's passion and the strength of his emphasis, to engage them in experiencing the words and phrases made" (xvi). Dan George blurred the distinction between poetry and prose, infusing his prose with the same poetic rhythms, cadences, and patterns of repetition as found in his poetry. It was a style that influenced many native writers because, as Armstrong said, "It sounded like us."
One of Chief Dan George's most well known poems, "Lament for a Confederation," was delivered to 35,000 people in the Empire Stadium in Vancouver during the 1967 Confederation celebrations. It is a poem that, amid the national celebrations, laments the Native loss of freedom: "I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea":
When I fought to protect my land, my home, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people I was stripped of my authority.
It asks how Native people can celebrate the centenary:
Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left me of my beautiful forests? For the canned fish of my rivers? For the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people?
The poem laments non-native indifference to their history, stereotyping, the loss of the will to fight back, to rise up, to go on. But it also speaks of courage and forbearance, and a future that envisions both a reliance on cultural traditions and integration:
Oh God! Like the Thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success—his education his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.
Chief Dan George has been honoured in many ways; he received a Doctor of Laws from Simon Fraser University and a Doctor of Letters from Brandon University. The Vancouver International Film Festival has an award in his honour called the Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award. He died in 1981, leaving us with many thoughts, many portraits of Native people:
The sunlight does not leave its marks on the grass. So we, too, pass silently.
Selected Titles: My Heart Soars (1974); My Spirit Soars (1982)
Rita Joe (b. 1932)
Rita Joe, often called the poet laureate of the Mi'kmaw people, was born in 1931 on the Wycocomagh Reserve on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Her mother died when she was five and she was placed into foster homes. At twelve she put herself into the Shubbenacadie Residential School until eighth grade. In Song of Eskasoni, published by Ragweed Press, Joe states "that school plays an important part of my life, along with native upbringing by many mothers....the importance of my country is why I try to portray the Indian as they are, so that others may see the part we play in our society." After leaving school, she traveled to Boston where she met and married Frank Joe.
She began writing poetry in the late sixties, poems about the Native experience, advocating love and understanding between peoples. She published in a newsletter, The MicMac News. The mother of ten, Rita Joe is a strong voice for both the education of Native children and the education of Canada about Native culture. She has traveled throughout Canada, the United States, and overseas, including a visit to the Queen, speaking on human rights and Native concerns.
Rita Joe has published seven books: three collections of poetry, a collection of poetry and stories, a collection of poetry with a short autobiography, Kelusultiek, her autobiography, Song of Rita Joe, Autobiography of a Mi'kmaq Poet, assisted by Lynn Henry (1996), and We are the dreamers : recent and early poetry (1999). She has also edited an anthology of Mi'kmaq poetry, with Lesley Choyce (1997).
Like Chief Dan George, Rita Joe extends a hand to white society to hear her, to recognize her:
I lost my talk The talk you took away. When I was a little girl At Schubenacadie school. You snatched it away: I speak like you I think like you I create like you the scrambled ballad, about my word. Two ways I talk Both ways I say, Your way is more powerful. So gently I offer my hand and ask, Let me find my talk So I can teach you about me.
Rita Joe is intent on writing poems that are "comment, protestation and correction aimed at history" (Armstrong, xviii)
In 1991, Rita Joe published her third collection of poems, Inu and Indians We're Called, in which she continues to offer a gentle hand. She states, in the introduction to the book, "I try to have a positive outlook on life, and to reflect that in my writing. When I was one of the winners in the Literary Competition of the Nova Scotia Writers Federation, I remember thinking 'Now my people will think, if she can do it, so can I'." She writes about Free Trade, the lines on her grandmother's face, prejudice, and Niskam (God).
Her poetry is often quietly, gently political, as in "Kluskap O'kom" (Glooscap) where she fears losing the caves, along with the walls of petroglyphs in Kelly's Mountain (where Glooscap, a Mi'kmaq god, once lived and is said to return one day), to a multimillion dollar quarry:
I left a message to Nikmaq In the caves of stone My home. The message says I go away But will return some day And the sun will again shine Across the trails my people walk. Kluskap O'kom
In 1990, Rita Joe was awarded the Order of Canada. Since then, she has also received an Honourary Doctorate of Laws from Dalhousie University, a Doctor of Letters from the University and College of Cape Breton, an Aboriginal Achievement Award, and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Mount St. Vincent. Doctorate of Humane Letter
Selected Titles: Song of Eskasoni (1988); Inu and Indians We're Called (1991)
Duke Redbird (b. 1939)
Gary James Richardson, a painter, poet, actor, political activist and filmmaker, was born on the Saugeen Reserve on the Bruce Peninsua in Ontario, of mixed Ojibway and Irish heritage, the youngest of six children. When his mother died trying to save her children from a fire that destroyed their home, Redbird, who was nine months old, was sent to a middleclass white foster home in St. Catherines. It was while he was living with the Jukes that he got his school nickname, Duke and later legalized it with Redbird. At the age of eleven, when his foster father died, he began a journey from foster home to foster home, often running away to try to find his birth father and family. There followed a rough period in street gangs and odd jobs. As a young man, he became involved in Indian political organizations and spoke on radio and television. He has created documentaries on native issues, including I Am the Redman and The Ballad of Norval Morrisea, given poetry readings and lectures on drama at York University.
Redbird began writing poetry in the 1960s. His early protest poems, such as "I am the Redman" and "The Beaver" "reflect the political turmoil of the period when he was a militant social activist" (Petrone 130). "The Beaver" likens the white man's ways to the beaver who damns himself in, who "works all night without light/in the darkness" but the result of all this labour is a stagnant pond, and "all the creepy crawly creatures/will crawl down, to make a home/within that putrid pond." It ends with a warning to his brothers not to become a beaver, not to build a dam:
For this is what the whiteman does With brick and stone and sand Till his mind is like that lake Filled with weird wicked wretches That give no peace. Then he cries to his creator In desperation Please God, my God, deliver me From damnation.
However, not all are protest poems; "I am a Canadian" is a sixty line poem celebrating the peoples of Canada, presented to Queen Elizabeth at her Silver Jubilee in 1977. Redbird captures a national slideshow of family photos:
I'm a clown in Quebec during carnival I'm a mass in the cathedral of St. Paul I'm a hockey game in the forum I'm Rocket Richard and Jean Beliveau I'm a coach for little league Expos I'm a babysitter for sleep defying rascals I'm a canoe trip down the Ottawa I'm a holiday on the Trent I'm a mortgage, I'm a loan I'm last week's unpaid rent
The poem ends:
I'm the Arctic Ocean, and the Beaufort Sea, I'm the prairies, I'm the Great Lakes, I'm the Rockies, I'm the Laurentians, I am French I am English And I'm Métis But more than this Above all this I am Canadian and proud to be free.
In 1978, Redbird published his Masters thesis in political science from York University entitled We Are Métis, an impassioned history of the Métis, and the first of its kind—a history of the Métis by a Métis.
The poems of the 1980s "reveal a mellowed Redbird who has moved... onto such subjects and themes as the beauty of the landscape; love of family, home and friends; and romantic love" (Petrone 158).
I've climbed the mountain, And feared the stony path I've reached the precipice, And I've laughed At the crevasses of life. I've shouted my triumph at the granite wall And watched my failures fall. Lord, I've loved the morning And slept with the night, I've touched the goodness, And fondled the sin, I've wondered at creation And cursed some paths I've been.
Redbird has represented Canada in many ways: as vice-president of the Native Council of Canada, President of the Ontario Metis and Non-Status Indian Association, his poem "Indian Pavilion" was featured during Expo '67 in Montreal, and he represented Canada at the Valmiki World Poetry Festival in Delhi, India (1985). In 1987, a commissioned work of his was read at the opening of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. He has combined many of his talents in a recent CD of his poetry and music called Duke Redbird's Poetry. Redbird currently operates a wilderness retreat in Madawaska, Ontario (Petrone 127).
Selected Titles: Loveshine and Red Wine (1981) Duke Redbird's Poetry (CD)
Sarian Stump (1945-1974)
Born in 1945, Marion Sarian Stump is of Shoshone, Cree and Salish ancestry. An actor, visual artist and poet, his most well known work is a collection of illustrated poems entitled, There is My People Sleeping. In her anthology, Native Poetry in Canada, Jeanette Armstrong states that its "simplicity and depth brought to us a way to speak to each other of those things spiritual without having to explain to non-Natives what they did not have access to, culturally. For example, I realized instantly that the poem "It's with Terror, sometimes that I hear them calling me" was deliberate in its choice of spirit power symbols, thereby creating a special layer of meaning for me. I believe this work was monumental in its influence on many Native writers seeking ways to write about what was then a taboo subject" (xvii).
It's with terror, sometimes, That I hear them calling me But it's the light skip of the cougar Detaching me from the ground To leave me alone With my crazy power Till I reach the sun makers And find myself again In a new place
It is difficult to capture the power of this collection without the accompanying bold, moving illustrations. "I was mixing stars and sand" laments, as do many of Stump's poems, the passing of the traditional way of life. In the image of the European blindness to the acts of the shaman, the poem powerfully suggests the tragic relationship of native and European imperialist.
I was mixing stars and sand In front of him But he couldn't understand I was keeping the lightning of The thunder in my purse Just in front of him But he couldn't understand And I had been killed a thousand times Right at his feet But he hadn't understood.
Stump lived in Alberta as a rancher and in Saskatchewan as an art instructor at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre. His paintings were widely exhibited.
Tragically, he drowned in Mexico in 1974.
Selected Work: There is My People Sleeping (1970).
Jeanette Armstrong (b. 1948)
We live in spaces little bits of spaces slim fitted slivers wedged between bunches of sound. Places where jeweled fishes dart through dark green.
Jeanette Armstrong is a writer, teacher, artist, sculptor and activist.
In her anthology, Native Poetry in Canada, Armstrong states that Chief Dan George and Duke Redbird were her earliest influences because they opened the field for her, to "voice what mattered to us as subject. Not unrequited love and romance, not longing for motherland, not taming the wilderness nor pastoral beauty, nor driving railroad spikes nor placing the immigrant self, but our own collective colonized heritage of loss, pain, anger, resistance, and of our pride and identity as Native" (xvii).
Later, other native writers like Gordon Williams and Skyros Bruce (Mahara Allbrett) led her through the sixties, "that invigorating anti-establishment counter culture, flower power, Zen meditation, political protest against inequality, and fascination with things Native" (xvii). Williams' poems "mirrored a Native experience of the 1960s while, at the same time, they seemed to be influenced by beat, free verse forms, and the minimalist writings of the then obscure but now famous non-Native coffeehouse poets I was reading" (xvii).
Sarain Stump offered another dimension to Armstrong's writing: "he was speaking a secret poetic language of symbols and images that could be appreciated only by a Native who was culturally knowledgeable" (xvii). Referring to his collection, There is my people sleeping, she states, "I believe that this work was monumental in its influence on many Native writers seeking ways to write about what was then a taboo subject" (xvii).
Native alternative press, such as The National Indian, Indian Record and Nesika fed her political and social awareness, while a scattering of native magazines like TAWOW provided her with native poetry. Other influences include George Kenny's stark, honest exposition of Indian stereotyping, in Indians don't Cry; David Daniel Moses' collection, Delicate Bodies, published in 1980, "shifted the paradigm for those of us who struggled with writing and identity and moved us into a decade of Native literary experimentation" (xix). These were some the dominate influences not only for Armstrong, but for a whole generation of Native poets in Canada.
Armstrong was born in British Columbia on the Penticton Reserve. She describes her father as a descriptive Okanagan storyteller and her mother as an avid reader. She grew up speaking both Okanagan and English, often acting as a translator for the people in her community. She went to a one room Reserve schoolhouse until junior high, when she entered Penticton's public school system and had to find her way, with the help of supportive parents, among the 2500 children and a system of non-native culture and values. She holds a Diploma in Fine arts at Okanagan University College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria, and was awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Letters from St. Thomas University in Fredericton N.B
In 1978, Armstrong returned to her home to first work and then become the director of the En'owkin Centre and the prime mover for the En'owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, a creative-writing school organized by and for Native people which grants diplomas through the University of Victoria. But her influence and activism don't end here; she is also a spokeswoman for indigenous people nationally and internationally.
Like Rita Joe, Armstrong is intent on eradicating misconceptions. Her first novel, Slash, attempts to accurately recount historical details. Petrone describes it as "the native perspective on the North American Indian protest movement of the sixties to the eighties...Slash (the main character) indulges in all the passionate and tense restlessness of a period when oppressed and powerless people, moving together, changed themselves and their country profoundly and permanently (141).
Her poetry has the same honest directness. "History Lesson" begins:
Out of the belly of Christopher's ship A mob bursts Running in all directions Pulling furs off animals Shooting buffalo Shooting each other Left and right.
Petrone states, "one can always rely on (Armstrong) to grapple with the grim realities of the contemporary native experience and tell the uncomfortable truths. No one has portrayed the native dilemma more energetically or with more emotional intensity" (163). However, she writes in a variety of forms and voices, of tones and moods.
Circles In moon down water sea lapped little crabs leave tiny piles of bubbles water walking beetles that spread quiet circles drawing shadows toward them.
To date, Armstrong's publications include a collection of poems Breath tracks (1991), two children stories, two novels Slash (1987) and Whispering in Shadows (2000), The Native Creative Process with Douglas Cardinal (1991), Native Poetry in Canada: A Contemporary Anthology (2001) edited with Lally Grauer, and a book of essays Looking at the Words of Our People: First Nation Analysis of Literature which she edited.
Selected Titles: Breath Tracks (1991)
Daniel David Moses (Delaware b. 1952)
Born in 1952, Moses grew up in on a farm in the Six Nations lands on the Grand River in Southern Ontario. After attending the reserve elementary school and Caledonia High School, he moved to Toronto to attend York University, where he received an honours BA in Fine Arts. He received his Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, and was awarded the Creative Writing Prize for playwriting. He returned to Toronto in 1979 where he currently lives and writes full time. He has published broadly in literary magazines, traveled extensively in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, giving readings, and has been writer-in-residence in locations across Canada.
Moses primarily writes poetry and plays, although he is also a critic and short story writer. He has two collections of poems, Delicate Bodies (1980) and The White Line (1990). His many plays have garnered awards; Coyote City was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Drama in 1991. He also edited an anthology: An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English with Terry Goldie in 1992.
His poetic sensibility is grounded in a double exposure: the Anglican Church, where he received a Western Judeo-Christian sensibility, and the Longhouse with its Iroquoian religious and political traditions. Much of his early poetry from the 1970s and 1980s reflects his connection with the land. Petrone states, "Moses writes about the places and people he knows, on and around the farm where he grew up and the city where he works. He sees colour, texture, and movement with the eyes of a painter. His mood is romantic and nostalgic; his quiet, casual tone is made fresh by his spontaneous joy in ordinary things and in the processes of rural life and nature (136).
His later poems often draw on surreal and dream journeys. Petrone argues that there is no direct confrontation in his poems, that "the message is submerged in his surreal image" (161). "Ballad from a Burned-Out House" effectively balances wild images of personified fire and stone, in a traditional quatrain. But the question remains: what do fire and stone represent?
Fire always wanted to marry stone. She claimed he alone could anchor her. She traveled through the wood with her hair loose and lifting almost to the sky. Stone never dreamed he'd meet such beauty. The heat of her kisses startled him. Though he wished to be diamond or quartz his body quickly thickened and broke. Fire shrouded herself in smoke and rain; Stone covered his wounds with new grass. Of course, they had no children or pain. Theirs was a cool and perfect divorce.
On one level, like Frost's images in "Fire and Ice," we could read Moses' images as representing our passions. However, the poem also suggests, in the last two lines, that unlike natural forces, our 'divorces', our failures in relationships, both personal and civic, are not so cool nor perfect.
Petrone argues that, "underneath the wry humour and ironies, the reader senses a struggle to attain self-knowledge as if Moses is feeling his way through the contradictions and puzzles of his life. Individual in both style and thought, possessing a striking original sensibility and a probing intelligence, Moses is an arresting poet" (161).
Selected Titles: Delicate Bodies (1980) White Line (1990)
Marilyn Dumont (b. 1955)
Born on March 15th, 1955 in Olds, Alberta, Marilyn Dumont is of Cree/Metis ancestry, a descendent of Red River freedom fighter, Gabriel Dumont. In 1991, she received a degree in English Literature and Anthropology from UBC. Interested in both visual art and poetry, Dumont then worked in video production with the National Film Board and considered going to the Alberta College of Art, but, after three years with the NFB, decided to do a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. A Really Good Brown Girl, her first collection, won wide acclaim, including the 1997 Gerald Lambert Memorial Award from The League of Canadian Poets, and her second collection, green girl dreams Mountains, won the 2001 Alberta Book Award for Poetry. Her poetry has also been widely anthologized and broadcast on radio and television. She has been a Creative Writing instructor at Simon Fraser University and Kwantlen University-College in Vancouver and Writer-In-Residence at the University of Alberta, and the University of Windsor.
Armstrong describes Dumont's background as a complex history. She is a Métis who "grew up close enough to Indian Reserves at Hobbema and Morley for townspeople to know we were Indian, but didn't live on the reserve" (255). Like Duke Redbird, Dumont sees herself as caught in the middle, a sort of no-mans-land, between the treaty Indian and white society. Her poems often wrestle with the question of identity. Armstrong argues, "She subverts ideas of identity as stable and natural, while at the same time she recognizes the need to struggle for a vision of oneself against contexts that attempt to limit and devalue" (255). Raised by bilingual parents, with a mother with a love of dance, she developed an early interest in language, not only its cadence, nuances, meaning, rhythm, and beat, but also its power to move others.
In presenting her first collection, Brick Books describes Dumont's voice and stance: "in a voice that is fierce, direct, and true, she explores and transcends the multiple boundaries imposed by society on the self. She mocks, with exasperation and sly humour, the banal exploitation of Indianness, more-Indian-than-thou oneupmanship, and white condescension and ignorance. She celebrates the person, clearly observing, who defines her own life. These are Indian poems; Canadian poems: human poems."
Dumont's generation grapples with the "fascination with all things native." The problem of gaining respect for differences while, at the same time, not being stereotyped is complex. How does the urban Native hold onto their cultural values? "Circling the Wagons", a prose poem, captures the frustration: "there it is again, that goddamned circle, as if we thought/in circles, judged things on the merit of their circularity, as if all we/ ate was bologna and bannock, drank Tetley tea, so many times 'we are' the circle, the medicine wheel, the moon, the womb and sacred hoops, you think we were one big tribe, is there nothing/more than the circle in the deep structure of native literature?" And yet, "I feel compelled to incorporate something/circular into the text, plot or narrative structure because if its linear then that proves that I'm a ghost and native literature really has vanished and what is all this fuss about appropriation anyway?" The poem ends with the suggestion that, like any symbol, the image of the circle, as in "circling wagons," can cause a shutting down of perception, if it is all you see.
Dumont's poetry is rich in subject and theme from memory, loss, and the social significance of language, to experiences of the rural prairie and urban cityscape. But it is often most powerful exposing the tyranny of stereotyping: "you are not good enough, not good enough, obviously not good enough. The chorus is never loud or conspicuous, just there." In "Memoirs of a Really Good Brown Girl" Dumont describes what it feels like to be Métis in a white school: "This is my first day of school and I stand alone; I look on. Most of/the kids know what to do, like they've been here before, like the/teacher is a friend of the family. I am a foreigner, I stay in my seat,/frozen, afraid to move, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to speak,/they talk differently than I do, I don't sound the way they do, but I/don't know how to sound any different, so I don't talk, don't volun/teer answers to questions that teacher asks. I become invisible."
This history page collects just some of the Native voices that have been invisible in the mainstream for too long. Although progress is being made, we delude ourselves if we think the problem of visibility has been solved. Too many Canadian poetry anthologies do not adequately represent the First Nation voices of Canada. In researching this history page, I had to rely on a few publications. It is one thing to publish anthologies of Native literature, and we should applaud the publishing houses that are doing this like Broadview and Oxford; but we need to increase the critical dialogue to broaden the mainstream understanding of Native poetry, its symbols, metaphor, irony and meaning.
Native poets, like Marilyn Dumont, help all of us to recognize and affirm the rich contributions of Native people to our cultural life and our shared, inherent humanity. Her work exposes the lies of negative stereotyping, speaks the truth of Native experience and oppression, and asserts an important and complex identity.
Selected Titles: A Really Good Brown Girl (1996); green girl dreams mountains (2001)