Totem Poles & Railroads
CBC Books | CBC News | Posted: March 8, 2017 7:12 PM | Last Updated: September 17, 2018
Janet Rogers
Totem Poles & Railroads succinctly defines the 500-year-old relationship between Indigenous nations and the corporation of Canada. In this, her fifth poetry collection, Janet Rogers expands on that definition with a playful, culturally powerful and, at times, experimental voice. She pays honour to her poetic characters — real and imagined, historical and present day — from Sacajawea to Nina Simone. Placing poetry at the centre of our current post-residential school/present-day reconciliation reality, Rogers' poems are expansive and intimate, challenging, thought-provoking and always personal. (From ARP Books)
From the book
were there only us
we'd drown in the illusion
of our own importance
spill blood over the ridiculous
and pray to vaporous sources
praying in faith with little return
we are saved by sources
beyond ourselves
strange yet real
rejecting simple notions
animal/mammal-like man
forest beings exacting
necessary survival practices
our reflection relations
maybe once and twice
removed
From "Shahsi ' To: Wane The Big Footed One" by Janet Rogers. Totem Poles & Railroads ©2016. Published by ARP Books.