luminous caragana in the river valley, last wednesday evening
I am reading a very beguiling book of poems right now, by Sky Dancer / Louise Halfe. She's a Cree poet from Saddle Lake, originally, who writes in English, but writes it like it's nêhiyawêwin, Cree. Her syntax is smooth & distinctive & she weaves in the magical cadences of Cree phrases, and calls this mixed language her 'grassroots tongue'.
The new one I am reading is called 'The Crooked Good' & it is rich & dire & beautiful, & you should really go here & read the excerpt. She is a storyteller, & in this cycle of poems (which reads like a novella, almost), she is ê-kwêskit, Turn-Around Woman, haunted by cihcipistikwân, Rolling Head, who is a mother & a lover & a terrible conscience, a guide, & she is retelling her life, her mother's life, her grandmother's life, everyone's life. She plays with time, erases era so that it's all past, all future -- all her relations are alive. & she writes of this country here, & her words are like rose-hips & the little white shoots of grass, you can taste the geography of eastern Alberta so well.
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