Whitemud Walking

For fans of Jordan Abel’s NISHGA and Place of Scraps, Joshua Whitehead’s Full Metal Indigiqueer, Billy-Ray Belcourt’s NDN Coping Mechanisms, and documentary poets Mark Novak and Jena Osman. Readers of anti-colonial poetry, ecopoetry, as well as lovers of the visual and documentary poetry movements, will all find much to rave about here. This book spans genres and has something for everyone with ‘typical’ lyric poetry, images, and more avant-garde poetry. Weigel’s poetry addresses Indigenous land claims, a subject that is making national news in the United States and Canada. Weigel is Dene and Métis (which means he is of both Indigenous and French heritage). His previous publication, It Was Treaty / It Was Me, is nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award and won the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award. The Vallum chapbook series also includes such luminaries as Paul Muldoon, Nicole Brossard, and Franz Wright. In the author’s words: “Much of this work began by thinking through obligations to the land as an Indigenous person trained in ecological science, in times of ecological collapse. Understanding my relations and treaty obligations have been important aspects of my life, as my father raised me to know and be proud that our ancestors signed treaty.”