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Skin Like Mine by Garry Gottfriedson (Ronsdale $15.95)
From Plato to east Hastings, from Picasso and Puerto Vallarta to The Old Ones, Garry Gottfriedson and his work resist stereotyping, "bones born in the city (Kamloops)/ moved to the reservation to write and ride... targeting mouthy politicians/ tipping over tequila and/crying over ghosts.";
A rancher poet from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) First Nation, this is a poet who cannot be pinned down. Readers will find no idealized "Indian"; in this book though there is respect for the grandmothers, the geographical location, the dancing and chant and what is left of the old native culture. He calls himself a bushman: "sacred in a drunken universe/ where the drum is still heard/ like a contemporary Koyoto story/ played out on the tv screen";
His raw words include scathing criticism of the violence and self-pity in tribal culture: "this is the result of something gone stupid/ we are stupid... afraid to live/ afraid to die/ afraid of ourselves."; He doesn't hold back when he takes aim at politics, both that of colonial history, bureaucrats and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
In 'Political Dysfunction,' he takes on the politics of the rez, where "internal pettiness is the norm.";
Don't expect a lot of hey-ya hey-ya. In a piece about Mary Magdalene, God cries blood. In a Crow poem, the cawing red tongue is searching for road kill.
Accessible plain talk, not literary poetry, with terrific speech rhythms, these poems are most effective when they are about concrete experience.
The writing about horses is exquisitely rendered though not sentimental. A series about Horsechild evokes his love for horses, knowledge of them, their companionship. His language about his horses is like the language one uses for grandchildren.
Occasionally a little too abstract (beauty, nature, loss, tears, fulfillment), Gottfriedson's inspired rawness is lived fear, lived grief and lived exaltation. He doesn't draw back from harsh history, weather, indigenous language loss and the cultural confusion of the urbanized rez kids.
Gottfriedson's honesty is engaging, "so here I am/ searching/ for recovery tools and the right prayer/ worthy/ of shaking the broken sky into repair.";
"I was born a nightmare/ in this drunken universe,"; so begins an opening poem about the mutilation of land and culture, which ends, "I seek the refuge of my own kind/ sealed among the drunkards.";
He rages but does not rant. There is self-knowledge but not self-pity. The strongest section is 'Scalps and Derma.' Here the laments are piercing. Where grieving is great, laments must be long and deep. Yet, no matter how cutting, they are spoken with dignity and do not resort to sarcasm. Well, occasionally they do as in 'One Tribe Canada' where he pokes fun at "Indians"; adorned in button blankets capped with war bonnets who build sweat lodges in suburbia.
Anger is most articulate when it is interspersed with tenderness. These poems describe a wide emotional arc. The rage is acute and the tenderness surprising. He is capable of writing about mystery as in 'Night Dancers,' a lovely, short piece about the Northern Lights.
Without undermining the strong words, Gottfriedson leaves the reader with a sense of his equanimity. On the Silent Night streets, "peace overrides misunderstanding at this moment of heartfelt song.";
Skin Like Mine is an eye opener. Readers who drive the highway east of Kamloops will never drive through that rolling Shuswap landscape with the same eyes again. 978-155380-101-6
Review by Hannah Main-Van Der Kamp, who writes from Victoria.
[BCBW 2010]
A rancher poet from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) First Nation, this is a poet who cannot be pinned down. Readers will find no idealized "Indian"; in this book though there is respect for the grandmothers, the geographical location, the dancing and chant and what is left of the old native culture. He calls himself a bushman: "sacred in a drunken universe/ where the drum is still heard/ like a contemporary Koyoto story/ played out on the tv screen";
His raw words include scathing criticism of the violence and self-pity in tribal culture: "this is the result of something gone stupid/ we are stupid... afraid to live/ afraid to die/ afraid of ourselves."; He doesn't hold back when he takes aim at politics, both that of colonial history, bureaucrats and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
In 'Political Dysfunction,' he takes on the politics of the rez, where "internal pettiness is the norm.";
Don't expect a lot of hey-ya hey-ya. In a piece about Mary Magdalene, God cries blood. In a Crow poem, the cawing red tongue is searching for road kill.
Accessible plain talk, not literary poetry, with terrific speech rhythms, these poems are most effective when they are about concrete experience.
The writing about horses is exquisitely rendered though not sentimental. A series about Horsechild evokes his love for horses, knowledge of them, their companionship. His language about his horses is like the language one uses for grandchildren.
Occasionally a little too abstract (beauty, nature, loss, tears, fulfillment), Gottfriedson's inspired rawness is lived fear, lived grief and lived exaltation. He doesn't draw back from harsh history, weather, indigenous language loss and the cultural confusion of the urbanized rez kids.
Gottfriedson's honesty is engaging, "so here I am/ searching/ for recovery tools and the right prayer/ worthy/ of shaking the broken sky into repair.";
"I was born a nightmare/ in this drunken universe,"; so begins an opening poem about the mutilation of land and culture, which ends, "I seek the refuge of my own kind/ sealed among the drunkards.";
He rages but does not rant. There is self-knowledge but not self-pity. The strongest section is 'Scalps and Derma.' Here the laments are piercing. Where grieving is great, laments must be long and deep. Yet, no matter how cutting, they are spoken with dignity and do not resort to sarcasm. Well, occasionally they do as in 'One Tribe Canada' where he pokes fun at "Indians"; adorned in button blankets capped with war bonnets who build sweat lodges in suburbia.
Anger is most articulate when it is interspersed with tenderness. These poems describe a wide emotional arc. The rage is acute and the tenderness surprising. He is capable of writing about mystery as in 'Night Dancers,' a lovely, short piece about the Northern Lights.
Without undermining the strong words, Gottfriedson leaves the reader with a sense of his equanimity. On the Silent Night streets, "peace overrides misunderstanding at this moment of heartfelt song.";
Skin Like Mine is an eye opener. Readers who drive the highway east of Kamloops will never drive through that rolling Shuswap landscape with the same eyes again. 978-155380-101-6
Review by Hannah Main-Van Der Kamp, who writes from Victoria.
[BCBW 2010]
Submitted on June 3, 2010 in By David.
