“Each generation must make their own / journey through a thick terrain” starts Generations Re-merging, a collection of poems which explores the complex tangle of intergenerational relationships and cultural issues encountered by a Mi’kmaw woman in the modern context, “where every moment / is the loss of something.” Alert to the fragility of community and culture, and to the pervasive threats against the natural and social environments which have traditionally fostered them, shalan joudry writes with lucidity of the challenge of confronting these global issues personally on her home ground, and of honouring the hope of past generations by renewing it in the present.

shalan joudry is an oral storyteller, poet, ecologist, and mother from the traditional district of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia). She lives and works in her community of L'sitkuk (Bear River First Nation) with her family. Using her theatrical background, shalan brings Mi'kmaw stories to a new generation of listeners, as well as recounting personally crafted narratives that follow Mi'kmaw storying custom. Of both Mi'kmaw and European ancestry, shalan weaves these worldviews in ecology and her writing.

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