This is a series where Indigenous writers and readers alike write reviews for some of their favourite pieces of writing and post them on Amazon, Goodreads, and the CiTR blog! Enjoy what they have to say about these texts.

 

Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard

Review by Selina Boan

I return to this collection of poetry again and again for its attention to sound, texture and word play. Howard’s thoughtful engagement with ideas surrounding assimilation, decolonization, and feminism is electric. There is a circular motion to the book that will haunt you in the most wonderful way. This is one of my all time favourite poetry collections. Worth the read.

 

Calling Down the Sky by Rosanna Deerchild

Review by Molly Cross-Blanchard

This book has been and will remain to be one of my favourite poetry collections of all time. Deerchild’s short lines and stanzas pack a wicked punch, cracking open the residential school horror story through the voice of a mother and daughter. The book explores both the direct  impact of residential school violence and the indirect reverberations of that violence, and like many other readers, I believe it should be part of Canadian high school curriculums. It’s that good, and that important.

 

Full-Metal Indigequeer by Joshua Whitehead

Review by Meagan Black

Joshua Whitehead is badass, with language like twin-pistols and impeccable aim. If you haven’t read this book yet, you need to correct that and give this collection however long it takes for you to read it cover to cover.

 

Written by:

Molly Cross-Blanchard: Molly Cross-Blanchard is a Metis writer from the prairies. Her first poetry chapbook is forthcoming this Spring with Rahila’s Ghost Press, and she is currently training to be Circulation Editor at PRISM international.

Meagan Black: Outside of school, Meagan Black’s interests include used book sales, working for Arc Poetry Magazine and never finishing the edits on her first YA novel. Her writing has appeared in ottawater, The New Haven Review, and Carousel.

Selina Boan: Selina lives on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Her work has appeared in CV2, Room, SAD mag, Poetry Is Dead and The New Quarterly, among others. She won the Gold National Magazine Award for poetry in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2016 CBC poetry prize. She is currently working on a collection of poems exploring her Cree and European heritage.