Episode 47: Louise Bernice Halfe - Sky Dancer: Canada's First Indigenous Parliamentary Poet Laureate.

Ahkameyimok Podcast with Perry Bellegarde

"It's very complex, our language, and it's filled with spirituality and land and psychology and it's directly related to where we come from. We are a composition of all these minerals because we are the Big Bang, we come from the stars. That's where we are from."

In February, Louise Bernice Halfe - Sky Dancer, was appointed to a two year term as Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate. She is the first Indigenous person selected for this prestigious national literary role. A proud member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Treaty Six Territory in Alberta, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate appointment is the latest achievement in a long and successful career. She was a past Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan and is author of several award winning collections of poetry, works that blend Cree and English and draw on her own experiences as a First Nations woman and a survivor of the Blue Quills Residential School, as well of those of her family and community.

Halfe and National Chief Bellegarde discuss what being the the first Indigenous Poet Laureate means to her, and what she hopes to achieve in the role. They also talk about the importance of ceremony and Indigenous language in reconciliation. And she reads from her newest poetry collection: "Awasis - Kinky and Disheveled," which features a main character who is “a trickster, teacher, healer, wheeler-dealer, shapeshifter, woman, man, nuisance and inspiration.”

To contact the office of the Parliamentary Poet Laureate and learn more about her role, please visit: https://lop.parl.ca/About/Parliament/Poet/index-e.html

For more on the work of the Assembly of First Nations, visit: afn.ca

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions in Ottawa.

And a special thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan, for our theme song, Intertribal.