This Is a Small Northern Town

By Deerchild, Rosanna ISBN: 9781897289358 format: Paperback pages: 96 publisher: J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing pub. date: 2008-09-30

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Winner of the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/Prix Lansdowne de poésie

This is a small northern town is the long awaited, first full-length collection of poems by Rosanna Deerchild. These are poems about what it means to be from the north; a town divided along colour lines; and a family dealing with its history of secrets. At its core—this collection is about the life of a Cree girl and the places she finds comfort and escape.

Excerpt:
cousin comes in from the bush still half-cut from all night partying my cousin wakes me at 7 am n’chi mis he says in slurred cree let’s go for breakfast i wear my dawn-yellow sun dress his name is Boy-Who-Is-Always-Smiling his name is Laughter-In-My-Heart his name is Always-Holds-My-Hand

Rosanna Deerchild is Cree from South Indian Lake, Manitoba. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary magazines including Prairie Fire and CV2. Her work is anthologized in Post-prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry (Talonbooks, 2005) and Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival (Sumach Press, 2003). She is the co-founder and remains a member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective established in 1999. The collective, a group of Manitoba writers, has released two collections in print, urban kool and Bone Memory, and a live spoken word CD, Red City.
For the last ten years, Rosanna has worked in print, radio and television journalism, specializing in Aboriginal issues, including several years as a producer and journalist for APTN. She has also performed live comedy and has written book reviews for the Winnipeg Free Press. Rosanna currently works a broadcaster with NCI-FM and is a regular columnist with CBC.