Favourites from My Indigenous Bookshelf
As much as I hate to admit it, I find the stack of books in my “To Read” pile increasing at a rate which is outpacing my reading output. The Japanese call it Tsundoku, the act of acquiring books, but letting them pile up, and I fully admit that my bedside dresser-top is becoming overwhelmed with books either purchased by me, rescued from “Free Book” piles, and as gifts given to me by those with the best intentions.
The genre usually dictates the amount of time spent in literary purgatory upon my dresser. Cozy British mysteries don’t stay around very long. Neither do books on pop culture or true crime (that being said, a book on Charles Manson, first published in 2013, currently holds the record of longest sitting book in my pile.) Certain academic works, usually with very small print, will have me pick it up, look at the font size and the page count, sigh, then put it back. As every reader knows, you have to be in the right mood for certain kinds of books, and, for some books, it can be a long wait.
That being said, if the genre is poetry, or the book is about Indigenous issues, then I will put a bookmark in whatever other book I’m reading and become hyper-focused upon it, consuming it in one sitting, forsaking sleep or meaningful communication with my loved ones until I have turned the last page, which is why my dresser-top is also covered in half-read books with dog-eared bookmarks protruding from them, possibly destined to never be read again.
The following, in no particular order, is a list of a few of the books that have jumped the proverbial queue and made it to the “read” shelf on my Goodreads app within the last little bit. Written by Indigenous writers, these are books which have crossed my path through various ways, and I am honoured to give them a shout-out for the skill, the artistry and the storytelling within. They are works I feel blessed to have read and to have on my bookshelf.
Iskotew Iskwew / Fire Woman: Poetry of a Northern Rez Girl
by Francine Merasty
I acknowledge a bit of bias when it comes to Iskotew Iskwew: Poetry of a Northern Rez Girl, written by Francine Merasty and published by BookLand Press. After all, one of my paintings was used as the cover art. However, the connection goes deeper than that. You see, not only is Francine also a fellow Residential School survivor, she and I attended the same Residential School at the same time in the 1980s.The poetry in this collection speaks of the emotional turmoil that she was forced to take on board as part of the Legal Counsel to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and the aspect of being an Indigenous woman from Northern Saskatchewan, her connection to the land, and, for me, a glimpse into what the girls in the other buildings of the Residential School were going through at the same time I was there. The book is a powerful read.
Black Water
by David A. Robertson
Black Water by David A. Robertson, published by Harper Perennial, is a deeply emotional invitation into the journey David undertook with his late father, a trip to the land of his father’s childhood, a connection broken by several spokes on the wheels of Colonization, and the ramifications of a cultural connection lost in the gears of western society. Having lost my own father to suicide when I was 8, I found my emotions towards David and his journey vacillating between unbound joy for his journey of rediscovery and reconnection and seething envy and jealousy for the opportunity he had with his father that I had forever denied to me. It was a book that had my tears flowing more than I had expected.
Scars & Stars
by Jesse Thistle
Jesse Thistle is a distant cousin of mine. We are both the multigenerational grandsons of Chief Mistawasis of the Nehiyawak, the Plains Cree, the first signatory of Treaty Six. We were both born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and we have both overcome the adversity of street life through a resiliency born of survival. We’ve both walked the darkened alleyways and city blocks, but Jesse’s journey took him few blocks farther. In his poetry collection Scars & Stars, published by McClelland & Stewart, Jesse moves from prose to free-verse poetry to narrative storytelling, inviting us deeper into the world in which he walked back then, a world I knew myself, and would have lived in, had I taken a different turn at the end of the street.
#IndianLovePoems
by Tenille K. Campbell
In Indigenous culture, particularly in the northern part of Saskatchewan where I grew up, it’s common to hear an interjection that is difficult to describe. It can denote sarcasm, derision, incredulity, humour, or it can acknowledge a funny situation. It involves sticking one’s tongue out and saying “mlaaah.” While reading #IndianLovePoems by Tenille K. Campbell, published by Signature Editions, I found myself saying this often. Exploring her sexuality, owning it, embracing it in a way that speaks in such a free way that Victorian colonial modesty beat out of society, Tenille’s poetry crosses from erotica to feminism to lament and back again, interspersed with phrases nuanced in such a way that make make you laugh so hard, your rez accent comes out, such as “she kissed like a fresh piece of moose meat.” A wonderful collection.
nipê wânîn: my way back
by Mika Lafond
Released in 2017 by Thistledown Press, nipê wânîn: my way back is the debut poetry collection of Mika Lafond. She is a cousin on my father’s side and also from my home community of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. What makes this work so special to me is that, while English books translated into Cree are common, it was one of the first books I read where the Cree translation came first. The reader is forced to acknowledge our language first instead of the other way around. Mika’s poems chronicle her reconnection to our culture through the guiding influence of ohkomiwawa, her grandmother, and she brings us in as honoured guests to the sacredness of the journey.
While the notion of the written word is a relatively new concept in terms of the Indigenous experience, our role as storytellers goes back beyond westernized concepts of time and history. That we as Indigenous storytellers have not only survived, but thrived in this medium shows the strength and resiliency that our stories possess. No longer the “token Indian in the writers stable,” as I was once called, we as Indigenous writers are ensuring that our stories live, as long as the Grass Grows and the Waters Flow.
John Brady McDonald is a Nehiyawak-Metis writer, artist, historian, musician, playwright, actor and activist born and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He is from the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and the Mistawasis Nehiyawak. He is the author of several books, and his written works have been published and presented around the globe. He is also an acclaimed public speaker, who has presented in venues across the globe, such as the Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival, the Black Hills Seminars on Reclaiming Youth, the Appalachian Mountain Seminars, the Edmonton and Fort McMurray Literary Festival, the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. A noted polymath, John lives in Northern Saskatchewan.
