Broadcaster and writer Rosanna Deerchild.
Rosanna Deerchild has launched her new book of poetry entitled, Calling Down the Sky.
Deerchild is an award winning Cree author and broadcaster, host of the national radio show, Unreserved, on CBC Radio One, and co-founder of the Indigenous Writers Collective of Manitoba.
Her family hails from O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation First Nation, and she grew up in Thompson, MB.
Calling Down the Sky is a unique book of poetry, one firmly grounded in the history of the province and the country.
Contrary to those who would have us believe that these stories are ancient history, these poems demonstrate the living, embodied and ever-so-present effects the residential school system and the ongoing colonial relationships have on, in this case, a simple mother-daughter relationship.
The book was written through conversations with her mother about her mother’s residential school experience. The book follows her relationship with her mother as she is gradually able to open up to her daughter about these experiences.
Calling Down the Sky is a timely, masterful, visceral, painful and beautiful book.
What follows is a two-part audio podcast where we hear from Deerchild and from her mother at the book launch at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg:
