The Pemmican Eaters
Marilyn Dumont
With a title derived from John A. Macdonald's moniker for the Mtis, The Pemmican Eaters explores Marilyn Dumont's sense of history as the dynamic present. Combining free verse and metered poems, her latest collection aims to recreate a palpable sense of the Riel Resistance period and evoke the geographical, linguistic/cultural, and political situation of Batoche during this time through the eyes of those who experienced the battles, as well as through the eyes of Gabriel and Madeleine Dumont and Louis Riel. Included in this collection are poems about the bison, seed beadwork, and the Red River Cart. Some of the poems employ elements of the Michif language, which, along with French and Cree, was spoken by Dumont's ancestors. (FromECW Press)
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From the book
gone, uncle they're gone
and something in us goes too following after
les animaux, those who you "called" as if they were your brother
les animaux, those who you called mon frre and herded with their great beards
les animaux, the brothers that have left us they have moved to another plain,
uncle, on the last unt instead of seeing a moving sea of brown backs, a rippling
ground
now, you see only a few stumps feeding on grasses
now, their great size is swallowed by the bigger prairie
prairie, that once seemed like it couldn't hold all
les animaux, their sound like distant thunder will never reach your ears again
From The Pemmican Eaters by Marilyn Dumont 2015. Published by ECW Press.
Author interviews
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