Earlier this month—with Indigenous History Month in mind—I wrote about Thomas King’s latest Thumps Dreadfulwater mysteries, and my theme of Indigenous reading for this year’s Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge, including seven books by Indigenous writers that align with challenge themes.

Now, on the other side of Indigenous Peoples’ Day (June 21st), I’m sharing three works of fiction (including a middle-grade novel), a book of poetry, and two works of non-fiction. These are the work of Nêhiyaw/Cree, nêhiyaw âpihtawikosisân/Cree-Métis-European, Métis-Irish, Métis, Muscogee Creek, and Te Ātiawa-Ngāti Tūwharetoa-W̱SÁNEĆ writers.

First, Conor Kerr’s An Explosion of Feathers (2021), which feels like such a tightly curated collection that even if you’re not as comfortable reading poetry as you are reading prose, there’s a place for you here.

The last section, for instance, begins with a poem about a young poet who has turned to writing for a way out of his basement apartment called “It’s All Magpies” and, then, nine poems titled like this: “A Magpie/Métis Boy Fights a Blue Jay” (which is actually more sports-related than you might guess) and “A Magpie/Métis Boy Visits A&W” (which includes a Celine Dion reference).

These are ordinary, relatable scenes presented with a vivid and tender sensibility. I love the ending of “Eating Macaroni Soup”, which reminded me of ideas I first encountered in Thomas King’s fiction: “Listening to the stories of our ancestors. The real stories. / Not the media ones.” And fits beautifully with the last stanza of “Abandoned Southside”:

Because I didn’t know yet that being Métis is creating
Your own narrative around the history of your walks.
That under the bridge, the campfires of your Granny’s
Family still burn, if you shut up you can still hear them
Singing long into the night, travelling songs, distinctive
Rhythms, that make a motherfucker want to get up and
Dance the long blocks back to the drudgy ass basement
Apartment behind the giant baseball bat.

(Aside: The baseball bat is on the Avenue of Champions which, coincidentally, is the title of Kerr’s first novel—which I reviewed for World Literature Today.)

Coincidentally, the family eats at A&W in Tauhou by Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall [Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, WSÁNEĆ] too.

She reimagines a sense of belonging for a young woman, Māori and Coast Salish, who belongs on two different shores of the Pacific Ocean. I read it like a poetry collection, a couple of short chapters in a sitting. In this way, her vision of a future took shape so it felt as real as the characters’ memories of their pasts.

She’s careful, however, to explain in her Author’s Note that she’s writing out of her personal experience, not in any attempt to depict “the reality of the Indigenous people of Aotearoa and Turtle Island). But, she writes, the true elements in the book are the impact of colonization: “pollution, land neglect and abuse, domestic violence, the legacy of residential schools, urbanization, cultural and familial disenfranchisement, children in state care, suicide, and mental and physical illness.”

Her use of language is spare and evocative, its simplicity reads like authenticity rather than polish. I particularly enjoyed the way she handles a sense of time, the way it settles beneath her narrative like ink beneath skin.

“All evening Hinau looks at her wrists. When she washes her face before bed, she sees them in the mirror, the markings her whole family should have. She sees the thousand different women who made her, clenched between the tattoo’s teeth in ink and blood.”

Suzanne Keeptwo’s We All Go Back to the Land (2021) has a very conversational tone but a near-academic complexity. She deep-dives into the concept and reality of land acknowledgements (briefly: statements made to indicate awareness of inhabiting other people’s homelands) beginning with comments from other Indigenous individuals (some of whom retain anonymity because this is a politically charged topic) about these acknowledgements’ usefulness/inadequacies.

She clarifies that her decision to include polarised opinions is to encourage discussion; there’s no expectation of resolution or conclusion. She also confronts the divisions in Indigenous communities (she herself recognises both her Métis and Irish heritage), whether broader divisions (e.g. traditionalists and assimilationists) or more specific (Métis Nation and Métis peoples).

Ultimately, she views the land acknowledgement as a powerful concept that isn’t carefully or effectively utilised and she insists that cooperation and reconciliation can achieve positive results. (Thanks to Rebecca U. for this rec!)

“The Land Acknowledgement has the power and potential to be a unifier across nations and among peoples: First Nation, Inuit, Métis, settlers, and new Canadians. We have great writers, historians, academics, Knowledge Holders, Cultural Carriers, Elders, and youth. Let us find among them those who are also Great Orators. Let us, as Indigenous peoples, seek to train those, from within our respective communities, who demonstrate the innate gift to assume the role of the Great Orators of tomorrow. If approached, please embrace the Teaching of Bravery to fulfill such a role and entrust your community, urban or otherwise, to Stand You Up.”

Carleigh Baker’s Last Woman (2024) contains fifteen stories; it begins with “Midwives”, ends with the title story and, interspersed, contains a trio of “Billionaires” stories set in space. Baker’s Bad Endings was justifiably lauded and this new collection is equally accomplished. I really enjoyed knowing that, whenever I picked it up to read, I would feel that sense of “rightness” that one feels with a most excellently told story. If you caught that whiff-of-the-80s slang there, you will also love the vibe of this collection, which does feel entirely of-this-moment and, yet, includes an homage to the shopping mall. Several of the characters and stories inhabit that thin margin between wry laughter and edge-of-tears, which works because it all feels so believable, so natural. For me, Carleigh Baker’s stories live with Casey Plett’s, Shashi Bhat’s and Deborah Willis’: they feel so ordinary that you can imagine them being written on a napkin in a greasy spoon, except they are unexpectedly moving. [nêhiyaw âpihtawikosisân/Cree-Métis-European]

“This alpha who just came in is so beautiful the light sharpens around her like an Instagram filter. She’s definitely in a band, maybe two bands, and she’s her hairdresser’s favourite client. They go for Jack and Cokes on Fridays at a heavy metal bar on East Hastings. She wears a catsuit and a really long string of pearls, but everyone knows she’s metal enough to belong there. But it’s Saturday tonight, and she’s got a reading or a gallery opening later, so she’s dressed in the nineties-era uniform of the least popular boys in high school. Stonewashed jeans, tucked-in t-shirt, and a trench coat. She is owning it, though, because she’s that beautiful.”
“Alphas”

Cynthia Leitich Smith’s On a Wing and a Tear (2024) was an absolute joy to read. It’s a middle-grade story that hangs its hook on a widower grandfather who might reconnect with his high-school sweetheart, and Grandfather Bat who requires some wing repair just when his presence is required for a rematch of the legendary baseball game between the winged and the pawed. This is probably the first time that I have ever paused to share a scene from a middle-grade novel with Mr BIP because it made me giggle so hard. (Thanks to Gray Squirrel for the shenanigans!) The story actually resides with Mel, who is bookish and unsure where she belongs (because heritage-wise she has three types of ancestry), but all the characters on the roadtrip are relatable and simply doing their best to move through the world doing more good than harm. It was EXACTLY the kind of book I needed to read right now, and it’s made a fan out of me for sure.   [Muscogee Creek Nation]

“Forcing a good-sport smile, Mel didn’t care if it made her an uptight city Native; she’d had a taste of the high life and the Wallace State Park campground wasn’t it. Then again, as her fingers curled around the fishing rod, she found herself longing for catfish for dinner, so maybe she wasn’t so citified after all.”

Bead Talk (2024) was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Glossy-paged with pictures of beaded artwork and women who bead: enough specialisation to feel the presence of expertise, but not so much that I feel excluded. I also love the idea that Brenda MacDougall expresses in the Foreword: despite her suspicions of online communities, she joined some during the pandemic lockdown, and the beading community sparked her to broaden her understanding of kiyokewin (visiting) and the ways we “create, reinforce, and maintain wahkotowin” (kinship). And what a lovely surprise to find conversations, as well as essays. Anyone who enjoys reading about creative pursuits will appreciate these. Marcy Friesen talks about how she can’t ever make an identical piece. Felicia Gay and Carmen Robertson talk about the importance of the kitchen table (among other elements) in Ruth Cuthand’s Boil Water Advisory #1 (with its tiny beaded swimming in glasses). Curious? Here’s a link to the beautiful scene of Katherine Boyer’s “The Grieving Bag” (2023)—zoom in, to see the detail in the beaded breeze.

Subtitle: Indigenous Knowledge and Aesthetics from the Flatlands
Editors: Carmen L. Robertson [Scots-Lakota], Judy Anderson [Nêhiyaw/Cree from Gordon First Nation, Saskatchewan], and Katherine Boyer [Métis])

More in a couple days but, meanwhile, which of these would you read first?