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calling down the sky
Calling Down the Sky is a poetry collection that describes deep personal experiences and post-generational effects of the Canadian Aboriginal Residential School confinements in the 1960’s when thousands of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were placed in these schools against their parents’ wishes. Many were forbidden to speak their language and practice their own culture. Rosanna Deerchild exposes how the Residential Schools systematically undermined Aboriginal culture across Canada and disrupted families for generations, severing the ties through which Aboriginal culture is taught and sustained, and contributing to a general loss of language and culture. The devastating effects of the residential schools are far-reaching and continue to have significant impact on Aboriginal communities. Calling Down the Sky was shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Manitoba Book Award – Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.
Contributors
Rosanna Deerchild
Rosanna Deerchild is an award-winning Cree author and broadcaster. Her family is from the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation located near South Indian Lake, Manitoba, but she grew up in Thompson, Manitoba. She has worked for a variety of Indigenous newspapers and major networks for over 15 years, including APTN, CBC Radio and Global. Her debut poetry collection, this is a small northern town, won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/Prix Lansdowne de poésie. Her latest poetry book, Calling Down the Sky, published by BookLand Press was shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Manitoba Book Award – Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. She is a co-founder and a member of the Indigenous Writers Collective of Manitoba. She currently lives in Winnipeg and works as the host of Unreserved on CBC Radio One.
