Treaty#

A treaty is a contract. A treaty is enduring. A treaty is an act of faith. A treaty at its best is justice. It is a document and an undertaking. It is connected to place, people and self. It is built on the past, but it also indicates how the future may unfold. Armand Garnet Ruffo’s TREATY # is all of these. In this far-ranging work, Ruffo documents his observations on life – and in the process, his own life – as he sets out to restructure relationships and address obligations nation-to-nation, human-to-human, human-to-nature. Now, he undertakes a new phase in its restoration. He has written his TREATY # like a palimpsest over past representations of Indigenous bodies and beliefs, built powerful connections to his predecessors, and discovered new ways to bear witness and build a place for them, and all of us, in his poems. This is a major new work from an important, original voice.

Contributors

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Armand Garnet Ruffo was born and raised in northern Ontario and draws upon his Ojibwe heritage for much of his writing. A multi-genre writer, he is the author of Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney and Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird, a finalist for the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Awards. His latest collection of poetry is The Thunderbird Poems. Other projects include “Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow,” a musical drama that premiered in the summer of 2018, and “On the Day the World Begins Again,” a short film about Indigenous incarceration that will premiere in October 2018. His writing most recently appeared in ARC Poetry, GRANTA's Canada issue, EVENT and 150, Canada’s History in Poetry (Nimbus Publishing). Ruffo is the recipient of a Honourary Life Member Award from the League of Canadian Poets and an inaugural Mayor’s Arts Award from the City of Kingston. He is currently the Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Literature at Queen’s University in Kingston. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Chapter Title Contents Contributors Pages Year Price

Preview

Impetus Ungainly – Doctrine of Discovery – The Tap – Pink Mints – The Shop – The Claim – Reckoning – On the Day the World Begins Again – A Love … 31 $3.10

Preview

Travelogue Sightline – Wallace Stevens’s Memory – Carrier Woman – Why Don’t You Write? – Missing – Lake Cousin – Under Construction – At My … 30 $3.00

Preview

Boreal Investigative – Zhawenjigewin – Luck – Biblical – God – Old House – Family Time – First Works – Bimodegos, Going Through the Bush in Winter … 33 $3.30