Poetry in Motion: Dallas Hunt + Creeland

Unable to sleep some evenings, Dallas Hunt would begin to write poetry on his phone. Soon enough, a considerable accumulation of poems took form. As part of his community awareness, and hopes of sharing his work with Indigenous and Cree communities, Hunt hopes more discussions and sharing will come forth. Dallas Hunt’s ambition with Creeland is for people to see Indigenous peoples as people, not deserving of the many violences they have faced, but also to recognize them as communities that thrive in each other’s company. The collection also touches on family members, women in particular, who have been erased, and the longing to have known them. “Here is an ode to northern Alberta, to the kokums and aunties who are worlds unto themselves, to the vastness and profundity of the Cree language. Dallas Hunt’s Creeland is tender and aching and intellectually exciting. Hunt uses the lyric mode to write another kind of public history about the prairies, one in which we Cree are always beautiful and indomitable. I can’t thank him enough for this.” — Billy-Ray Belcourt

Dallas Hunt reads four poems from his collection Creeland

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Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty Eight territory in northern Alberta. He has had creative worked published in Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, PRISM international and Arc Poetry. His first children’s book, Awâsis and the World-famous Bannock, was published through Highwater Press in 2018, and was nominated for several awards. Hunt is an assistant professor of Indigenous literatures at the University of British Columbia.