Stephen Cruikshank recommends Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise B. Halfe
One incredible Indigenous author that continually has impacted my understanding on the poetics of reconciliation and decolonization is the Plains Cree poet Louise B. Halfe (aka "Skydancer).
In her poetry collection, Burning in this Midnight Dream (Coteau Books, 2016 / Brick Books 2021), she offers one of the most powerful descriptions of the heartache experienced by Indigenous peoples as they return to a past of trauma and tragedy (particularly referencing residential schools) in the attempt to pull lost knowledge into the present and prepare a renewed future for generations to come. She writes:
"Sometimes the end is told before the beginning.
One must walk backwards on footprints
that walked forward
for the story to be told."
— "âniskôstêw — connecting"
A lot of her poetry is precisely about that: expressing the painful walk backwards on footprints that walked forwards—forward steps that she depicts as a walk of "confusion" due to lost knowledge as a result of the atrocity of residential schools.
June 2024 Creative Corner prompt response, published with the author's permission. Copyright © 2024 review by Stephen Cruikshank. Sign up for our newsletter for a chance to be featured on our blog, Pensieri.
Dr. Stephen Cruikshank has an eclectic educational background that began teaching in English and Spanish high school classrooms, led to international studies in Cuba and Brazil, and graduate programs in both Victoria and Edmonton specializing in language instruction, comparative literatures, literary theory, and Latin American culture. He has taught over 14 different undergraduate courses across different universities, presented conference papers in the U.S., Canada, and Cuba and was a SSHRC doctoral fellow for his research on the remediation of gender and racial stereotypes in Cuban artistic expressions. He is a former editor of The Polyglot magazine.