î-nitotamahk kîsik

“î-nitotamahk kîsik” is a poetry collection in Cree that describes deep personal experiences and post-generational effects of the Canadian Aboriginal residential school confinements in the 1960s when thousands of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were placed in these schools against their parents wishes. Many were forbidden to speak their language and practice their own culture. Rosanna Deerchild exposes how the residential schools systematically undermined Indigenous culture across Canada and disrupted families for generations, severing the ties through which Indigenous culture is taught and sustained, and contributing to a general loss of language and culture. The devastating effects of the residential schools are far-reaching and continue to have significant impact on Indigenous communities.

AUTHOR

Rosanna Deerchild

Rosanna Deerchild is an award-winning Cree author and broadcaster. Her family is from theO-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation located near South Indian Lake, Manitoba. She has worked for a variety of Indigenous newspapers and major networks for over 16 years, including APTN, CBC Radio, and Global. Her latest poetry collection, “calling down the sky,” published by BookLand Press was shortlisted for the 2016 League of Canadian Poets Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Manitoba Book Award – Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. She is a co-founder and a member of the Indigenous Writers Collective of Manitoba. She currently works as the host of Unreserved on CBC Radio One.

AUTHOR

Solomon Ratt

Solomon Ratt was born near the Churchill River, just a few kilometres north of Stanley Mission. He spoke only Cree until the age of six when he was taken away from his parents to attend a residential school in Prince Albert. Since 1986, he has been an associate professor of Cree language studies at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan. He is the author of “nihithaw acimowina / Woods Cree Stories” published by the University of Regina Press in 2014. He lives in Regina, SK.