The Red Files - Lisa Bird-Wilson (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
The Red Files.  Lisa Bird-Wilson.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2016.

The Red Files takes its title from the federal government files on residential schools.  Lisa Bird-Wilson has a new history for the Canadian people to consider and it is a scathing indictment.  If sins and wrongs were arrows there aren't enough Saint Sebastians in all of Canada to absorb them.

It is now beyond any reasonable question that the Canadian residential school system was an evil forced upon First Nations.  Lisa Bird-Wilson's The Red Files takes us to school.

Métis

Métis road allowance squatters

with their raw camps set up on the edge

of the exact reserve boundary, she sees them all

the time, those kids, school-less, she sees

those half-breed kids who look no different

from herself and her friends, sometimes

in spring, every single thing

they own fits in the wagon pulled

by the one sapless horse, away

for summer work, or back

from winter trapping

her mother says something nice

about the half-breed boy, the one

who comes to the house to visit

and have tea with sugar and sometimes a crust of bannock

she likes him and her mother says he is 

a good boy

but then one day in the not-work or trapping season,

he disappears

him and his whole family are moved

away and other families evaporate too

in the middle of the night

shacks burnt into the dirt and raked clean

her mother helps her

understand people

can just disappear

like that

like the seasons or the wind

she says, we are all

impermanent and when the girl looks puzzled

mother says like melted candle was or snow and then

it's finished: what are you doing inside

go out and play

on the empty road, fingers of sunlight

comfort her back and her shoulder flesh;

she runs to feel her own quick breath

...

Lisa Bird-Wilson has miraculously avoided simple anger and instead burrowed into a deeper chasm where indifference, racism and entitlement has carved deep wounds into the indigenous psyche. These poems will make you weep regardless of the colour of your skin.  

If you are First Nation the weeping could simply be memory, the scourge of residential schools cut a large uncompromising swath through generations.  If you are not indigenous then there are going to be some tears of guilt.  Either way these painful stories of imprisoned youth will tear you a new one.

Farm Instructor

afternoon chores and the sun

is three hours past its highest point

hot on their dark heads they seek the shade

behind the big barn, the boys

four of them including Ronny

decide to take their chance to run

and on a silent cue

they take off

across the open grass and down the slope

breaking through tree branches

shadow dappled panic

hearts beat faster than chased rabbits

skinny legs push for home

boughs cracking toward light and a chance

wordless spirited breaths follow

one another

and the farm instructor inside his home

boots off, already drunk

in his chair by the south window, dreaming

sun-warmth on his forearm and right thigh

and when he hears about the boys he releases

a heavy sigh

stiff with the beating he'll give

the one he catches first

he laces his boots and send the hand for the truck

hopes to be back before dark

it'll be Ronny who feels the rough hands

of the farm instructor

pull him easily to the ground

heavy knee on his narrow chest

the breath crushed from his lungs

as he steels himself to be beaten

like a man

...

Lisa Bird-Wilson has found the narrative tools to expose the horror and the terror inflicted upon these children and how it inevitably exploded into a casual methodology for cultural genocide.  There aren't enough apologies in the world to assuage the grief inflicted on the indigenous population of Canada and these poems spell it all out.

Bird-Wilson knows she doesn't have to hammer hard, these poems can feel almost gentle when read aloud, but they carry the weight of a wronged world.

The Finest in the Dominion

Saturday is his day to take

a boy. Mostly they are all the same

to him, but this Saturday it's Kenneth,

the most recent

quiet lad to be seduced

by a promise

of driving the school bus.

Here I call him Kenneth, but to name him

is the challenge, when his has only been

a number

but I will call him Kenneth

and while we are naming, I dare you to cite

a single ten-year-old

boy any one out of hundreds

who would be able

to resist, able to measure

the price of that first joyride.

What he did was this --

offered the boy, Kenneth, the chance

to drive the big school bus.

But here's the rub:

Kenneth is his principal's reach

he's too small to touch

the pedals and the

steering wheel at once

so he sits on the headmaster's

lap. Don't think Kenneth hasn't heard

the other boys calling

him the principal's fag baby

but he, too young to really

understand those words,

went along anyway with the man

whose single-mindedness and hard

work built the school residence

to one of the finest in the dominion.

...

Our morning read was enthusiasm tempered by the guilt of the oppressor.  You can't read these poems and feel the same way again.  Today's book of poetry would argue that only the very best poetry has the capacity for transformation, you read it and you are a different person.  Bird-Wilson has the entire template laid out.  One child tells a story and then the next, one foot in front of the other, Bird-Wilson walks you through it and holds your hand.

Lisa Bird-Wilson has given voice and name to a lost generation of ghosts, both living and dead.  

Today's book of poetry believes that The Red Files should be mandatory reading in every high school in Canada.

Cremation

first I stand beside your closed pine box its sharp edges

covered by a white woollen blanket

and through the shroud my fingers work

a rivet along the lid near where I imagine your hand to be --

your graceful tapered fingers

I'm aware of the funeral man waiting

ready to wheel you into the next room

it all seems to happen in stages, this death business

room to room to room -- I remember them all

we come with you so you won't have to be alone

he offers that I might want to push the button,

tells me some Hindus and Sikhs desire a funeral pyre,

take cremation as a consolation and want to participate

I tell him we're not those kind of Indians,

then allow myself to laugh but he doesn't

so I stay on my side of the glass

while your body burns I hold tight to my boys'

hands and stare straight ahead as you rise to air

and become part of the atmosphere

part of the white and yellow-centered daisies you adored

the convincing scent of the lilacs, so brief in spring

the apple tree with its small sour apples

the blossoms of the crabapple in your backyard

in the front, the giant pine that you remembered

as a seedling -- at the end these were your whole world

and I think you finally forgot about the rest of it--

the ways you'd been hurt, by men and children alike,

debts others owed you -- as you turned inward

with the preoccupation of dying

well

we leave the crematorium, your smoke

filtered through the chimneys, lit

in cold February air and perfect sky-blue sky

I imagine you now, unfettered

limbs whole again, spine straight and true,

rising to walk lightly off the boat, your hand

in the captain's, stepping down

to a place where you can dance once more

in your pretty shoes with your delicate

feet and slender legs, yes

dance on the graves of the dead bastards

the ones who have it coming because

if you don't, who will?

...

Today's book of poetry thinks that Lisa Bird-Wilson's first book of poetry is a stunner.  The Red Files is an important book of poetry for Canadians, I hope they all get to read it.

Lisa Bird-Wilson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Cree-Metis writer from Saskatchewan whose writing has appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, including Grain, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Geist, kimiwan, cîhcêwêsin and Best Canadian Essays. She is the author of the novel Just Pretending (Coteau Books, 2013), and her debut poetry collection, The Red Files, was published by Nightwood Editions in 2016. Bird-Wilson lives in Saskatoon, SK.

BLURB

“Lisa Bird-Wilson eloquently weaves archival work and collected life stories into her debut poetry collection...vivid and visceral...This sharp collection could be used to teach the more painful elements of Canadian history - ones that our curriculum conveniently glosses over. The themes of reconcilliation, and how we continue to reconcile today, will remain with readers long after reading...Bird-Wilson’s first collection of poetry is sure to leave readers wanting more.”
     ~ Nashwa Khan, This Magazine (May/June 2016)

Lisa Bird-Wilson

Lit Happens w/ guest Lisa Bird-Wilson

Hosted by Saskatoon Storyteller Danica Lorer, Lit Happens is a weekly segment on Shaw TV Saskatoon focusing on the literary arts scene in Saskatchewan

Video; Shaw TV Saskatoon

nightwoodeditions.com 

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