Unsettledby Dawn MorganPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Madonna Hamel$24.95 ISBN 9780889778573 Subtitled A Reckoning in the Great Plains, Unsettled is a labour of love that, like all true reckonings, took a long time to take shape. The book revolves around four “lost anchor” events and the author Dawn Morgan’s urge to reconcile herself to them: the death of an old rancher who was gored by a bull bison named King, the death of King himself, the subsequent death of her father by suicide, and the disappearance of Assiniboine who once inhabited the land her ancestors settled. Morgan is a deft handler of the English language. She can weave disparate sources together to create connection and meaning where none was previously evident. In her heart-wrenching, sometimes comic, mostly conciliatory, search for release from her haunting past she introduces us to the poetry of Andrew Suknaski, examines the papers of the Palliser Expedition, dips into the diaries of Métis guide Peter Erasmus, detours into country-western lyrics, then veers into the writings of German philosopher Theodor Adorno. She reflects on Hemingway’s take on bullfighting, the life of Spanish gauchos, and Kafka’s novel “Amerika.” Reading Unsettled is a lot like being a…

From Left to Rightby Dale EislerPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Madonna Hamel$34.95 (pb)ISBN 9780889778641 In his book From Left to Right: Saskatchewan’s Political and Economic Transformation, Dale Eisler helps us take a clear-eyed look at the province as the world economy shifted from post-industrial to global and the province’s population moved from farms to cities. Case in point: In 1971, 47% of Saskatchewan’s population lived on farms. By 2016 the the number was down to 16%. Eisler begins by attempting to define “populism” because , he says “the role of prairie populism is key to understanding the province’s values, economy and culture as a whole.” “For populism to ignite,” he writes, “two things are needed: something or someone to focus their anger and alienation on, and somebody who articulates their emotions in compelling and emotional language.” In engaging language Eisler describes the many faces of “populism” and how, over the decades, its meaning has changed to embrace both liberal and conservative voices. He is also quick to point to papa Trudeau’s cavalier disregard of the prairies when he asked, in 1969, “Why should I sell your wheat?” The off-handed comment aimed at a people who were losing their…

Kayās Nōhcīn, I Come from a Long Time Backby Marie Louise RockthunderEdited by Jean L. Okimasis and Arok WolvengreyPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Madonna Hamel$24.95 (pb)ISBN 9780880778368 Collected over a quarter of a century, Mary Louise Rockthunder’s oral history put to paper is a national treasure. It is also a journey through space and time. And languages. A testament to the power of fidelity to timeless truths embedded in oral history, the editors of these stories write that “Mary Louise’s memory for her past is so detailed and precise that it was as if she stored her diaries in her mind.” Mary Louise Rockthunder (nee Bangs) was an Elder of Cree, Saulteaux and Nakoda descent, born in 1913 and raised and married at Piapot First Nation. Her stories, filled with humour and told with humility, are a testament to her rootedness, to her kinship with the land over time. She speaks in Cree, despite how some people tell her her English is fine. “Some don’t understand it right when English is spoken” she says, when relating her way of being in the world. “These white people, “she says, “what they really like is money.” But, she says, advising her grandchildren,…

The Boy From Buzwah: A Life in Indian Educationby Cecil KingPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$29.95 ISBN 9780889778504 I’ll admit it – I live in a bubble. I have a routine life that is cozy. That said, when something comes my way that pushes me out of my comfort zone, I love it! The Boy From Buzwah did just that – it ripped me out of my sheltered life and deposited me into a fascinating new world that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about. This book is the self-written memoir of Cecil King. King grew up in Buzwah on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. A residential school survivor, King moved to Toronto to earn his teaching degree before spending his career striving for much-needed changes in Indigenous education.  I am not a fan of the current trend to write memoirs with a timeline that jumps all over the place, skipping around from current day to birth to young adult, back to childhood and everywhere in between. Thankfully King avoided any of that and The Boy From Buzwah unfolds in seamless chronological order. We start with King’s childhood attending the Buzwah School before…

Carrying the Burden of Peaceby Sam McKegneyPublished by University of Regina PressReviewed by Madonna Hamel$34.95 ISBN 9780889777934 From the first sentence of his book, Carrying the Burden of Peace, author Sam McKegney poses questions big enough for all of us to embrace, questions asking for new ways to scrutinize our world: “Can a critical examination of Indigenous masculinities be an honour song?” he asks. Can it “celebrate rather pathologize”? How do we hold institutions accountable and yet still “validate and affirm” the people who need validating and affirming? How do we entertain change without “fixing new terms of engagement”? His most pressing question: “Can an examination of Indigenous masculinities be an embodied enterprise?” Makes me think: If it can’t we are all doomed, because nowhere in the wider culture have I found a people more effective at embodiment – through humour, creativity, eros, and spirit – than Indigenous communities. The title of McKegney’s book comes from the Kanien’keha:ka word for “warrior”, which when translated, reads: “those who carry the burden of peace.” (This gives me pause, once again, to consider what we lose and have lost, intentionally and unintentionally, in translation.) McKegney quotes activist and artist Ellen Gabriel, who says:…

Synapticby Alison CalderPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Elena Bentley$19.95 ISBN 9780889778610 “[L]et me reverse your gaze, turn / the microscope upon the viewer.” It’s clear from the beginning of Alison Calder’s incredible third book of poetry, Synaptic, we are being asked “to think about the way we perceive and the ways in which we seek to know ourselves and others.” To find answers, Calder starts by exploring the field of neuroscience. “Connectomics,” the book’s first section, concerns itself primarily with the neuroscientific ways humans attempt to know themselves, or more importantly, the lengths to which humans will go to know themselves. Footnotes accompany each poem in this section, and the language is quite simple. Both the footnotes and straightforward diction allow the poems to be easily understood, despite the subject matter’s complexity. Aware of the large role animals play in our curiosity to glean self-awareness, Calder has written poems inspired by, among other things, the gene splicing of fireflies and mice, the genome sequencing of roundworms, and the discovering of algal protein for the use of optogenetics; however, she notes the curiosity is not reciprocal. An owl, for example, “knows itself / […] It sees you and doesn’t…

Shifting Baseline Syndromeby Aaron KreuterPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Elena Bentley$19.95 ISBN 9780889778542 Can anyone alive remember a time without TV? Not many people can. Soon enough, no one will remember a time without it. TVs and screens of every size will become part of our collective memory—things that have always just been—and we’ll forget how things were. The “name […] for this forgetting” is “Shifting Baseline Syndrome,” which is also the title of Aaron Kreuter’s second book of poetry. In this collection, Kreuter, with a unique blend of directness and sardonic wit, shows us how “[t]elevision is just another name for the Anthropocene.” Although we’re seeing a growing trend of climate change and doomsday poetry, Shifting Baseline Syndrome stands out because of its ingenious use of the television/life metaphor and Kreuter’s unabashed approach. These poems don’t hesitate to comment on the ridiculousness of our obsession with and over-consumption of television, the internet, and cell phones. For example, in the poem “Meanwhile,” we watch “Homer and Marge argue about the nuclear codes they / accidentally won in the town raffle; […] [m]eanwhile, the balsam fir colonizes another warming valley.” Put in a language us TV-obsessed readers can understand,…

The Unravelling: Incest and the Destruction of a FamilyPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$21.95 ISBN 9780889778436 As the title suggests, this fantastic read is about how a family deals with the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse across generations . But this book isn’t just about abuse and retribution. It also delves into the dynamics of a marriage, the struggles of parenthood, and the delicate balance of friendships, among many other topics. It even touches on faith and the church. It is a fascinating story that pulls you in right from the get-go.  So we don’t need a Spoiler Alert label at the top of this review, I won’t go into the details about how the decades of abuse and the subsequent quest for justice went. But I will say that I’d wager that Besel had no idea how extreme the highs and lows would be that she encountered along her journey. It was a wild ride! As the chapters flew by, I was triggered by how many people wanted Besel to drop her quest for justice just because the person who abused her was in a questionable state. Should someone not be penalized for their actions…

Pitchblendeby Elise Marcella GodfreyPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9-780889-778405 I didn’t know what pitchblende was before I read Elise Marcella Godfrey’s same-named poetry collection, but I certainly do now. To shortcut, merriam-webster.com describes pitchblende as “a brown to black mineral that consists of massive uraninite, has a distinctive luster, contains radium, and is the chief ore-mineral source of uranium”. It’s a measure of the poet how Godfrey takes this radioactive by-product of uranium ore—and the capitalist/colonialist/mostly male culture surrounding its extraction and usage—and transforms it into a finely-tuned collection of political, environmental, and investigative poetry. Godfrey writes from “the traditional and unceded land of the QayQayt First Nation” on Vancouver Island, and this well-researched, multi-voiced collection exhibits a deep caring for the earth and its peoples. Her cry is clear: “the neocolonial machine … promotes profit and industry at the expense of community and sustainability.” Pitchblende does not read like a first book. Godfrey’s a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan and her work’s appeared in journals and anthologies: she’s put in the literary leg work, and it shows. These poems are saturated with internal and…

The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mindby Mark AbleyPublished by University of Regina PressReviewed by Madonna Hamel$24.95 ISBN 9780889775817 There is nothing Mark Abley can’t write about. Whether its about smalltown Saskatchewan, threatened languages, imagined conversations with dead historical figures or ruminations on the English idiom, Abley is indeed able. As poet and editor and columnist he inspires confidence in writers and readers alike, so that every new release is billed as “long-awaited.” Books take as long as they take, you cannot rush a writer. And in the case of this newest book, a nonfiction reminiscence on his life with his father, Abley could not have written it a moment too soon. There is never a moment in The Organist when the reader does not feel the immense pressure and tension in the writer to be fair, honest and fearless in his depiction of his father. His mother reminds Abley that his father had “an artistic temperament,” as if that somehow justified his occasional tantrums and extreme behaviours, such as locking himself in the bathroom before an international flight. Or wishing aloud to a dinner party of relative strangers that someone assassinate Margaret Thatcher. “Harry Abley”, writes Abley about…