Long Dance, The
- Publisher
- Kegedonce Press
- Initial publish date
- Jun 2000
- Category
- General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780969712053
- Publish Date
- Jun 2000
- List Price
- $14.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Out of print
This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.
About the author
David Groulx was raised in the mining community of Elliot Lake in northern Ontario. He is proud of his Native roots - his mother is Ojibwa Indian and his father is French Canadian. David received his B.A. degree from the Lakehead University, where he won the Munro Poetry Prize. He has previously published five poetry books and his poems have appeared in over a hundred periodicals in Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Austria, Turkey, and the USA. He lives in Ottawa.
Shirley Ida Williams is a member of the Bird Clan of the Ojibwa and Odawa First Nations of Canada. She was born and raised at Wikwemikong First Nations Reserve on Manitoulin Island and currently resides in Peterborough, Ontario. She received her B.A. degree in Native Studies from Trent University and M.A. at York University. She has lectured across Canada promoting Nishnaabe language and culture and worked on many language training and translation projects for Heritage Canada, Ontario Ministry of Education, Department of Indian Affairs and other national organizations.
User Reviews
Powerful
These are powerful heartsick poems of protest and despair and my copy is littered with bookmarks of my favourites. In "Learning History" (p. 33) "what I learned made me vomit/fire".In Groulx's title poem, "The long dance" about smallpox there's a couplet that's worth the price of entry alone: "let me hold you like a bannister/let me hold you like a deadman." It talks of the impacts of colonialism "Nootka woman with echoes/of gunboats in your ears//show me the place//where Raven was shot to pieces//and taken away" (p. 108).
The poems are large with passion and despair but economical of words.