Wazhashk Poetry

This weekend marks the end of the first leg of my touring for the newest collection, North of Middle Island, and I am left with some important thoughts about Indigenous lit and culture moving forward. Thoughts that have arisen from the most recent high profile pretendian revelation as well as the path of Canadian literature emerging in strange, if not sickened, world we’ve inherited mid-decade.

Starting with thoughts of epic poetry is likely the best course. And as the first snows have fallen (and melted) here on the south shore of Waawiiyaatanong, we have entered the traditional storytelling season. As the cold and dark season falls upon us, the need to gather in warm and in union to battle the isolation of the winter is truly a humanity-wide behaviour. One that has existed for millennia and have left traces in our literature and storytelling records. Here is where the epic poem comes in. Because poetry is the oldest of the literary arts and epic poetry is the among of the oldest of the poetic arts.

The concept of the individual-centred poem is fairly recent to the genre. In fact, the concept of the individual in literature in general is relatively new to all writing with many literary scholars arguing that the true modern sense of the individual in the literary arts doesn’t actually arise until about five centuries ago. Meaning that epic poems where often the means by which societies the world over shared their histories and ways of being with subsequent generations. Sure there were famous individuals, legendary warriors, occasionally gods, at least the great leaders of those peoples. But the focus was always on the culture and the people as a whole. Their stories, their experiences, shared in beautiful rendered song and image within shared moments. Moments that happened in longhouses, bighouses, mead halls, and community gatherings. Epic poetry is the fundamental way in which the majority of cultures and societies have preserved and then moved their peoples forward. As we as Indigenous writers look to do more than simply coax fire from the remaining embers of our cultures and languages, we would do well to look to the millennia-old tools that had be used to propel and preserve pre-colonial cultures the world over. Recall that even the colonizers were once colonized. And that process did not destroy the heart of these epic poems. The myths and stories and experiences endured.

The importance of new myths, new stories, is critical to the ongoing survival of Indigenous cultures. The first thing that pretendians like Buffy, Boyden, and Benaway do is to recite (often incorrectly) the stereotypical myths or stories from the culture they are trying to steal and profit from. They know so little about the cultures they steal from they must use their limited settler outsider knowledge to craft an image or song or story that speaks to the myriad of falsehoods that corporate capitalist aspect of the arts word lusts for. Sure, they may cloak their actions in the desire to achieve reconciliation or healing or revolution. But it is a tattered, moth-eaten, and all too familiar cloak of cultural genocide and racist stereotypes that they wear for the occasion. And the occasion, most sadly, is during the awards ceremonies where primarily other settlers have approved of their colonial narratives and handed out the cheques meant for actual Indigenous voices and creators. Their work, occasional pretty, is hollow and projects none of the lyric life and Indigenous experience that true myth and art can and do.

We need new ways to converse with the realty that our peoples and cultures exist within. Foundational myths are important, tales like that of Wa-Sha-Xnend, Mek-ke-hap-pa, or the Great Hairless Bear, hold a critical anchor for us as cultural survivors. These have long been the soul of epic poems and stories about who we were and where we’ve come from. But there are new contexts, new warriors, new situations that have arisen since these stories and myths came to us. And they will long be the heart of our epistemologies. However, to live, to thrive as a culture, one’s art must be willing to use those old myths in a new way and when possible craft new mythologies. This is growth, yes. But it is also adaptation and survival and remembrance. Crafting new myths with old ways ensure that our ancestors, named and unknown, live on.

As we find ourselves falling into this season of storytelling, of myth sharing, remember this. Remember this as readers, as audience, and as artist. The decolonized future has mythic wrestlers fighting over distant islands terrorized by mainland greenhouses. It is also home to epic curling matches and the migrations of indigenous peoples in sedans and sports coupes. There has always been more of a future in our past than there ever has been with our present. And all of it is measured in how and when we chose to share our new and ancient mythologies.