Abstract Love by Bevann Fox Published by Bevann Fox Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $24.95 978-0-9879287-0-2 Myrtle is beautiful, with a successful career. She has it all – except for love. Multiple marriages to “emotional terrorists” have left her wondering if healthy love can exist for her. After residential school, it seems Myrtle is doomed to what she calls “genocidal love.” “Genocide has my brother,” Myrtle thinks: “[he] walks the streets talking to spirits and gods, picking butts, eating out of garbage cans, asking for change so he can buy glue and sniff the genocidal effects away.” Genocide continually threatens Myrtle, too. Struggling for normalcy, she finally has to go back and fully experience what happened, then tell the truth about it to those who were responsible. That means lodging a legal claim, a process almost as destructive as the original abuse. Myrtle’s mental and emotional equilibrium suffers; relationships spiral into cycles of craziness, and she can hardly function at work. The insanity drags on for years. Abstract Love is a voice from the whirlwind of a profoundly abused person’s mind as she toils toward wholeness and redress. “Your genocidal practice to kill me as an Indian did not work,” she…

The Cellophane Sky: jazz poems by Jeff Park Published by Hagios Press Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $17.95 978-1-926710-09-9 In the same way a jazz musician feels into the heart of a melody to improvise a free expression of its soul, Jeff Park in this collection of poems imagines the inner lives of the jazz greats, spinning onto the page their physical worlds, the emotional meanings of events in their lives, and the stories they told themselves about their place in the scheme of things. Meet Jelly Roll Morton as God, Billie Holiday as unwilling accomplice in her grandmother’s death, and Lester “Prez” Young as a lad on the streets of a New Orleans suburb, absorbing jazz along with the boat whistles and neighborhood arguments. Stay up all night in Paris with Duke Ellington. Get inside the skin of Mingus as he challenges racism. See, feel, taste, and smell their world. Many of these musicians experienced poverty, abuse, and racism. Music became a way to push back, to imagine and indeed to create a world “rising like a dream/from all that is broken” where, as Park writes of Mingus, “all would change, anything was possible.” Jazz aficionados and general readers alike…

First in Canada: An Aboriginal Book of Days by Jonathan Anuik Published by Canadian Plains Research Center Press Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $24.95 978-088977-240-3 Every schoolchild has heard of La Vérendrye, but how many know the name of the Cree guide who made the canoe route map he relied on? We all know about the Plains of Abraham and Sir John A. Macdonald, but how many of us know about the numbered treaties, or when Native Canadians got the vote? Jonathan Anuik’s sumptuously illustrated, made-for-browsing book brings a hidden history to light. Hundreds of intriguing facts, arranged by date, alternate with photographs and short writeups about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people across Canada, from earliest prehistory to the present. First in Canada celebrates Native achievements in every field: art, literature, music, architecture, politics, medicine, sports, religion, theatre, education, and more. Also noted are the darker elements of our shared history: conflicts from the North West Rebellion to Oka; Richard Cardinal’s suicide and David Marshall’s wrongful imprisonment; the long and tangled history of legislation and activism attempting to sort out the relationship between Native and more recently arrived Canadians. Many items are only briefly noted; readers will want to turn…

Letters to Jennifer from Maudie and Oliver by Sharon Gray Published by DriverWorks Ink Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $16.95 ISBN 978-098103947-3 When a dear friend who lives far away has cancer, what can you do? If you’re a pair of enterprising Siamese cats in Winnipeg, you write frequent, short, funny letters, full of news of your feline world, and include brief expressions of your love and care. Jennifer is a real person, and Maudie and Oliver are real cats. The letters are real, too, from the pen of Maudie and Oliver’s “Live-In Person,” Sharon Gray. Written over the course of Jennifer’s illness, the letters offer a cat’s-eye view of the world that is frequently hilarious, sometimes poignant, and always engaging. Anyone who has lived with cats will admire the closely observed feline behaviour and distinct individual characters of Maudie and Oliver. Anyone who has been through a personal disaster will appreciate the light touch and frequent but understated expressions of care. And anyone who’s ever felt helpless in the face of someone else’s suffering will find ample inspiration in this delightful work. Gray’s keen eye, good heart, and smart pen are well complemented by Erika Folnovic’s charming drawings. This is…

Gabriel Dumont: La Chef Michif in Images and In Words by Darren R. Préfontaine Published by the Gabriel Dumont Institute Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $65.00 ISBN 978-0-920915-87-5 On postage stamps and place mats, bronze plaques and sculpture, Gabriel Dumont, military leader of Riel’s 1885 Rebellion, continues to be remembered. In recent years he has been freshly appreciated as a genuine community leader, and a touchstone of Métis identity. Now he is the subject of a large, colourful, coffee-table anthology from the Gabriel Dumont Institute. Drawing together a wealth of photographs, artwork, archival documents, artifacts from his life, and newspaper accounts past and present, it explores how Dumont has been perceived through time and by different individuals and communities. Browsing these pages, you will see Dumont through many different eyes: Métis and settler, government and military, French and English Canadian, American and British. You will see Dumont pictured with hostile bitterness, racist suspicion, equally racist romanticism, revolutionary fervor, political pragmatism, and more. You will also discover a wealth of period detail: the difference between French and English billiard tables; how bison hunters reloaded on the fly (and sometimes lost fingers); war reporting prior to instant communications; and Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild…

“Cree: Words” / “nēhiýawēwin: itwēwina Compiled by Arok Wolvengrey Published by Canadian Plains Research Center Reviewed by Chris Ewing-Weisz $49.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-127-7 Words tell how people see the world. Not just by the things they’re used to say: words themselves, their history, the way they’re formed, the rules governing their use, speak volumes about the culture in which they originate. That’s one of the things that makes Arok Wolvengrey’s Cree: Words so worthwhile. Its two volumes document the Cree language (primarily Plains Cree) as used by fluent speakers across Western Canada. Although its main function, as a bilingual dictionary, is to help speakers of English and Cree find the right word in each other’s language, it also provides a window into the strikingly different cultural assumptions that first met on this continent several hundred years ago. The idea that the world is a web of relationships is embedded in every word a Cree speaker utters. To choose the right word you must think about whether your subject is animate (alive) or not. Some words, like those for family members, do not stand alone, but must be described in relation to someone else. You also have to consider whether the object…