A Beautiful Rebellion

Publisher's Description (Thistledown Press): 
This evocative new poetry collection speaks with a fierce tenderness of many aspects of the poet’s life: a childhood spent on the banks of the Churchill River, the death of a beloved one, the struggle to try to find forgiveness for wrongs done and the weariness of trying to redress those wrongs. And, most poignantly, a beautiful rebellion reaches one hand back to Louis Riel and one hand forward to future Metis generations. 

The poems navigate losses that we all suffer when the world of our childhoods has altered irrevocably; they reveal the pain caused by residential schools and share despair at the lack of progress in social justice and self-determination. Rita Bouvier’s work is intimate and insightful, written in inviting, open-hearted language that includes many Cree and Michif phrases and their translation.

Author's Biography (Thistledown Press): 
Rita Bouvier is a Métis writer and educator from Saskatchewan. Her third book of poetry, nakamowin’sa for the seasons (Thistledown Press, 2015) was the 2016 Saskatchewan Book Awards winner of the Rasmussen, Rasmussen & Charowsky Aboriginal Peoples’ Writing Award. Rita’s poetry has appeared in literary anthologies, print and online journals, musicals, and television productions, and has been translated into Spanish, German and the Cree-Michif of her home community of sakitawak, Île-à-la-Crosse, situated on the historic trading and meeting grounds of Cree and Dene people.

Resource type: Book (Fiction/Poetry)

Age recommendation: Grades 10-12, Post secondary

Keywords: Childhood, memory, forgive, forgiveness, rebellion, sun, sing, singing, day, language, understanding, learning, teaching, teach, dance, music, community, togetherness, fire, preservation, nature, soul, spirit, death, colonize, colonized, colonial, colonial violence, racism, stereotype

Year of publication: 2023

Publisher information: Thistledown Press