1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910150251403321

Autore

Bird-Wilson Lisa

Titolo

The red files / / Lisa Bird-Wilson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Gibsons, British Columbia : , : Nightwood Editions, , [2016]

©2016

ISBN

0-88971-067-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (66 pages)

Disciplina

811.6

Soggetti

Canadian poetry - 21st century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- I -- Mourning Day -- Mischief -- After Summer Holidays -- Boys' Class Date Unknown -- Girl with the Short Hair -- Miss Atwater's Class -- Métis -- Grasshopper -- This Day -- Blood Sisters -- Baby Thomas -- Farm Instructor -- The Finest in the Dominion -- Tunnel -- "Within the Circle of Civilized Conditions" -- Beside a Residential School -- II -- Standard Features -- Black-Eyed Susan -- Indian Preacher -- kâ-nêwonâskatêw -- Scrip Buyer 1905 -- Indian Tallyman -- Hundreds of Boys-A Response -- "The ██████'s Situation" -- Reply from Mr. R.F. Davey, Superintendent of Education, Indian Affairs: -- Painter -- Drowning Girl -- things that are small -- Honour Song -- III -- The Apology -- Kohkum -- Descended from Daybird -- When Someone Remembers My Father -- Cloud Naming -- My Mother Raised Me -- Taste -- Fruit -- Hands -- Mistress -- Sweep -- Cremation -- This Is a Surprise -- Acknowledgements.

Sommario/riassunto

This debut poetry collection from Lisa Bird-Wilson reflects on the legacy of the residential school system: the fragmentation of families and histories, with blows that resonate through the generations. Inspired by family and archival sources, Bird-Wilson assembles scraps of a history torn apart by colonial violence. The collection takes its name from the federal government's complex organizational structure of residential schools archives, which are divided into “black files" and “red files." In vignettes as clear as glass beads, her poems offer affection to generations of children whose presence within the historic



record is ghostlike, anonymous and ephemeral. The collection also explores the larger political context driving the mechanisms that tore apart families and cultures, including the Sixties Scoop. It depicts moments of resistance, both personal and political, as well as official attempts at reconciliation: “I can hold in the palm of my right hand / all that I have left: one story-gift from an uncle, / a father's surname, treaty card, Cree accent echo, metal bits, grit— / and I will still have room to cock a fist." The Red Files concludes with a fierce hopefulness, embracing the various types of love that can begin to heal the traumas inflicted by a legacy of violence.