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A Virtual Evening with Louise B. Halfe—Skydancer

Thursday Apr 08 2021 7:00 pm, Saskatoon, Virtual
NOTE: This event has already taken place. Please visit this page to see our upcoming events.

Please join Louise B. Halfe-Skydancer to celebrate the launch of awâsis–kinky and dishevelled (Brick Books), as well new editions of Blue Marrow (Kegedonce Press) and Burning In This Midnight Dream (Brick Books). With in-conversation host Candace Wasacase-Lafferty and special guests Maria Campbell, editor Ronald Marken, and University of Saskatchewan President Peter Stoicheff.

Registration is required to directly participate in the Zoom webinar. It will be simultaneously streamed on YouTube and available for viewing thereafter.

A gender-fluid trickster character leaps from Cree stories to inhabit this racous and rebellious new work by an award-winning poet. There are no pronouns in Cree for gender; awâsis (which means illuminated child) reveals herself through shapeshifting, adopting different genders, exploring the English language with merriment, and sharing his journey of mishaps with humor, mystery, and spirituality. Opening with a joyful and intimate Foreword from Elder Maria Campbell, awâsis–kinky and dishevelled is a force of Indigenous resurgence, resistance, and soul-healing laughter.

The voices of Blue Marrow sing out from the past and the present. They are the voices of the Grandmothers, both personal and legendary. Blue Marrow is a tribute to the indomitable power of Indigenous women of the past and of the present day.

Originally published in 2016 by Coteau Books, Burning in This Midnight Dream won the Indigenous Peoples' Publishing award, the Rasmussen, Ramussen & Charowsky Indigenous Peoples' Writing award, the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award, the League of Canadian Poets’ Raymond Souster Award, and the High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writers. It was also the 2017 WILLA Literacy Award Finalist in Poetry.

Candace Wasacase-Lafferty is the Senior Director Indigenous Engagement at the University of Saskatchewan. A citizen of the Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Candace began working on campus in 2001 and is a proud alumna of the College of Arts and Science. Since then, she has worked in various roles that promote Indigenous values and culture within the university and lead in the realization of the Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre.

Candace is a member of the Board of Directors for Wanuskewin Heritage Park and the Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Board. She describes Louise as her spiritual mentor and has been deeply moved by Louise’s generosity to others in particular the love she shows to students at the Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre.

See:

awsis - kinky and dishevelled

- Louise B Halfe

Trade paperback $20.00
Reader Reward Price: $18.00

A gender-fluid trickster character leaps from Cree stories to inhabit this racous and rebellious new work by award-winning poet Louise Bernice Halfe.

There are no pronouns in Cree for gender; awâsis (which means illuminated child) reveals herself through shape-shifting, adopting different genders, exploring the English language with merriment, and sharing his journey of mishaps with humor, mystery, and spirituality. Opening with a joyful and intimate Introduction from Elder Maria Campbell, awâsis - kinky and dishevelled is a force of Indigenous resurgence, resistance, and soul-healing laughter.

If you've read Halfe's previous books, prepared to be surprised by this one. Raging in the dark, uncovering the painful facts wrought on her and her people's lives by colonialism, racism, religion, and residential schools, she has walked us through raw realities with unabashed courage and intense, precise lyricism. But for her fifth book, another choice presented itself. Would she carve her way with determined ferocity into the still-powerful destructive forces of colonialism, despite Canada's official, hollow promises to make things better? After a soul-searching Truth and Reconciliation process, the drinking water still hasn't improved, and Louise began to wonder whether inspiration had deserted her.

Then awâsis showed up--a trickster, teacher, healer, wheeler-dealer, shapeshifter, woman, man, nuisance, inspiration. A Holy Fool with their fly open, speaking Cree, awâsis came to Louise out of the ancient stories of her people, her Elders, from community input (through tears and laughter), from her own full heart and her three-dimensional dreams. Following awâsis's lead, Louise has flipped her blanket over, revealing a joking, mischievous, unapologetic alter ego--right on time.

"Louise Halfe knows, without question, how to make miyo-iskotêw, a beautiful fire with her kindling of words and moss gathered from a sacred place known only to her, to the Old Ones. These poems, sharp and crackling, are among one of the most beautiful fires I've ever sat beside." --Gregory Scofield, author of Witness, I Am

"Louise makes awâsis out of irreverent sacred text. The darkness enlightens. She uses humor as a scalpel and sometimes as a butcher knife, to cut away, or hack off, our hurts, our pain, our grief and our traumas. In the end we laugh and laugh and laugh." --Harold R. Johnson, author of Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada

"This is all about Indigenizing and reconciliation among ourselves. It's the kind of funny, shake up, poking, smacking and farting we all need while laughing our guts out. It's beautiful, gentle and loving." --Maria Campbell, author of Halfbreed (from the Introduction)

"There really isn't any template for telling stories as experienced from within Indigenous minds. In her book awâsis - kinky and dishevelled, Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe - Skydancer presents a whole new way to experience story poems. It's kinda like she writes in English but thinks in Cree. Lovely, revealing, funny, stunning. A whole new way to write!" --Buffy Sainte-Marie

Blue Marrow

- Louise Halfe

Trade paperback $16.50
Reader Reward Price: $14.85

The voices of Blue Marrow sing out from the past and the present. They are the voices of the Grandmothers, both personal and legendary. They share their wisdom, their lives, their dreams. They proclaim the injustice of colonialism, the violence of proselytism, and the horrors of the residential school system with an honesty that cuts to the marrow. Speaking in both English and Cree, these are voices of hopefulness, strength, and survivance. Blue Marrow is a tribute to the indomitable power of Indigenous women of the past and of the present day.More than twenty years since its first publication, this critically acclaimed collection is available in a redesigned edition, including an all-new interview with its celebrated author, Louise B. Halfe - Sky Dancer.

Burning in This Midnight Dream

- Louise B Halfe

Trade paperback $20.00
Reader Reward Price: $18.00

A deeply scouring poetic account of the residential school experience, and a deeply important indictment of colonialism in Canada.

Many of the poems in Louise Halfe's Burning in This Midnight Dream were written in response to the grim tide of emotions, memories, dreams and nightmares that arose in her as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. In heart-wrenching detail, Halfe recalls the damage done to her parents, her family, herself. With fearlessly wrought verse, Halfe describes how the experience of the residential schools continues to haunt those who survive, and how the effects pass like a virus from one generation to the next. She asks us to consider the damage done to children taken from their families, to families mourning their children; damage done to entire communities and to ancient cultures.

Halfe's poetic voice soars in this incredibly moving collection as she digs deep to discover the root of her pain. Her images, created from the natural world, reveal the spiritual strength of her culture.

Originally published in 2016 by Coteau Books, Burning in This Midnight Dream won the Indigenous Peoples' Publishing Award, the Rasmussen, Ramussen & Charowsky Indigenous Peoples' Writing Award, the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award, the League of Canadian Poets' Raymond Souster Award, and the High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writers. It was also the 2017 WILLA Literacy Award Finalist in Poetry. This new edition includes a new Afterword by Halfe.

"Burning in this Midnight Dream honours the witness of a singular experience, Halfe's experience, that many others of kin and clan experienced. Halfe descends into personal and cultural darkness with the care of a master story-teller and gives story voice to mourning. By giving voice to shame, confusion, injustice Halfe begins to reclaim a history. It is the start of a larger dialogue than what is contained in the pages." --Raymond Souster Award jury citation