"I build this story like my lair. One willow, / a rib at a time"
-- "The Crooked Good"
Since 1990, Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe's work has stood out as
essential testimony to Indigenous experiences within the ongoing history
of colonialism and the resilience of Indigenous storytellers.
Sôhkêyihta includes searing poems, written across the expanse of
Halfe's career, aimed at helping readers move forward from the darkness
into a place of healing.
Halfe's own afterword is an evocative meditation on the Cree word
sôhkêyihta: Have courage. Be brave. Be strong. She writes of coming into
her practice as a poet and the stories, people, and experiences that
gave her courage and allowed her to construct her "lair." She also
reflects on her relationship with nêhiyawêwin, the Cree language, and
the ways in which it informs her relationships and poetics.
The introduction by David Gaertner situates Halfe's writing within the
history of whiteness and colonialism that works to silence and repress
Indigenous voices. Gaertner pays particular attention to the ways in
which Halfe addresses, incorporates, and pushes back against silence,
and suggests that her work is an act of bearing witness - what Kwagiulth
scholar Sarah Hunt identifies as making Indigenous lives visible.