6 books that changed the life of poet Gregory Scofield
April is National Poetry Month and CBC Books is highlighting Canadian poets throughout the month!
Gregory Scofield is a Métis poet and author. He was the 2016 recipient of the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize, a $25,000 award given to an accomplished mid-career poet. Scofield's seventh poetry collection, Witness, I Am, is an emotionally vibrant, determined meditation on missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Below, Scofield talks about the books he's loved reading over the years.
Half-Breed by Maria Campbell
"Half-Breed gave me a sense of my self. It gave me a sense of my community."
In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier
"This book gave me a sense of my own lived experiences."
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
"This book that was given to me by my late mother. That was one of the first books that was given to me. It really gave me a sense of wonder — and it gave me a belief in a spiritual world."
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
"Wretched of the Earth taught me about resistance and the power of words as a form of resistance."
She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo
"This was one of the first poetry books by an Indigenous poet that I actually picked up. Through the book and the beauty of how the horses were described, it was also the power of language through poetry. It was about the power of poetry as a form of storytelling, as a form of healing, as a form of resistance, as a form of beauty."
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
"The Diviners gave me a sense of wonder. The book gave me a sense of Canadian history and the experiences of Indigenous and Metis people in this country. It gave me a sense of storytelling as well."
