Sohkeyihta: The Poetry of Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe

"I build this story like my lair. One willow, / a rib at a time" ("The Crooked Good").

Since 1990, Louise Bernice Halfe’s work has stood out as essential testimony to Indigenous experiences within the ongoing history of colonialism and the resilience of Indigenous storytellers. Sohkeyihta includes searing poems, written across the expanse of Halfe’s career, aimed at helping readers move forward from the darkness into a place of healing.

The introduction by David Gaertner situates Halfe’s writing within the history of whiteness and colonialism that works to silence and repress Indigenous voices. Gaertner pays particular attention to the ways in which Halfe addresses, incorporates, and pushes back against silence and suggests that her work is an act of bearing witness—what Kwagiulth scholar Sarah Hunt identities as making Indigenous lives visible.

Louise Halfe’s afterword is an evocative mediation on the Cree word sohkeyihta: Have courage. Be brave. Be strong. She writes of coming into her practice as a poet and the stories, people, and experiences that gave her courage and allowed her to construct her “lair.” She also reflects on her relationship with nehiyawin, the Cree language, and the ways in which it informs her relationships and poetics.