Tansi/Hello,
We thank you for finding and creating space with us here today. These voices reflect some of the diversity and vibrance of the Indigenous community, and we hope that you’ll take some time to breathe deeply, connect with the land, and give yourself space to explore these readings and the featured authors.
Hiy Hiy/Thank you,
The PRISM international Team
Listen to Molly Cross-Blanchard read her poem, “First Time Smudge” and read Selina Boan’s poem, “Meet Cree: A Practical Guide to Language”:
Read Exhibitionist by Molly Cross-Blanchard:
Read Undoing Hours by Selina Boan:
Listen to Nathan Adler perform his spoken word soundscape, “I Sign My Treaty Annuity Payment With an X”:
Read Wrist by Nathan Adler:
Listen to Billy-Ray Belcourt read his poem, “According to the CBC, Indigenous Peoples are Demonstrably More Vulnerable to Illness and Disease, Live Fifteen Years Less than Other Canadians”:
Read A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt:
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis poet, writer, and editor born on Treaty 3 (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 (Prince Albert, SK), and currently living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, aka Vancouver. She is the former poetry editor of PRISM international, the former publisher of Room, and currently teaches Creative Writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. In service to the writing community, Molly serves as the Indigenous Advocate on the National Council for TWUC, sits on the Board of Directors at Asparagus Magazine, and consults on the Equity Advisory Committee at the BC Arts Council.
Nathan Adler is the author of Wrist, a novel written from the monster’s perspective, and Ghost Lake, an inter-connected collection of short stories (both published by Kegedonce Press), and co-editor of Bawaajigan ~ Stories of Power (Exile Editions), he has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, a BFA in Integrated Media from OCAD, and a BA in English Literature and Native Studies from Trent University, he is a recipient of an Indigenous Voices Award for prose, a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for literature, and winner of an Aboriginal Writing Challenge for poetry. He is Jewish and Anishinaabe, Two Spirit, and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation.
Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta and has been both a Rhodes Scholar and a PE Trudeau Foundation Scholar. He is the author of This Wound is a World (Frontenac House 2017), winner of the 2018 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field (House of Anansi Press 2019), longlisted for Canada Reads 2020, and A History of My Brief Body (Hamish Hamilton 2020), finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction.