you are enough: love poems for the end of the world

Smokii Sumac

Image | Book Cover: you are enough by Smokii Sumac

(Kegedonce Press)

In his debut poetry collection you are enough: love poems for the end of the world, Smokii Sumac(external link) has curated a selection of works from two years of a near daily poetry practice. What began as a sort of daily online poetry journal using the hashtag #haikuaday, has since transformed into a brilliant collection of storytelling drawing upon Indigenous literary practice, and inspired by works like Billy Ray Belcourt's This Wound is a World, and Tenille Campbell's #IndianLovePoems. With sections dealing with recovery from addiction and depression, coming home through ceremony, and of course, as the title suggests, on falling in and out of love, Sumac brings the reader through two years of life as a Ktunaxa Two-Spirit person. This collection will move you as Sumac addresses the grief of being an Indigenous person in Canada, shares timely (and sometimes hilarious) musings on consent, sex and gender, introduces readers to people and places he has loved and learned from, and through it all, helps us all come to know that we are enough, just as we are. (From Kegedonce Press​)
you are enough won the $2,000 Indigenous Voices Award for published poetry in English.

From the book

i.
nogo has become
a place where
when i walk home
many friends appear
reminiscent of
my hometown
in its close fam-
iliarity
you
new as i was once
join me in walking
and stopping
to say many hellos
"famous" you noted
as we met her there
she laughed
then (knowing)
smiled
peterborough famous
GE shutting down
in the
electric city

From you are enough: love poems for the end of the world by Smokii Sumac ©2018. Published by Kegedonce Press.