1. The Difference Between A Battle And A Massacre. A poem weaving my ancestor’s experiences in the Red River settlement, including their involvement in the Riel Resistance and and my own experiences teaching inside a federal prison. A meditation on our collective histories in Canada and how they have played out over time with contemporary carceral violence a new iteration of very old wars.
2. Painting / Drawing: Ancestral Figure and Child – Reaching Back. This piece expresses the care I often feel from those women who have gone before me, as I am now a grandmother and feel such tenderness toward my grandchildren. This Ancestral figure is an archetype – she is naked because she is in spirit, but wears a ghost of a dress and carries a shopping bag to also express her character as a living flesh woman who went before, but who will always be reaching back to care for the little one(s) behind her.
