Coming together over a painful past; two poets are honored; and a pick of the week from Tochi Onyebuchi

Coming together over a painful past; two poets are honored; and a pick of the week from Tochi Onyebuchi
Nina MacLaughlin
© Anna Keenan
Canisia Lubrin (above) and Serhiy Zhadan have won this year's Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.
Coming together
Over the span of six years in the late eighties and early nineties, a group of Indigenous tribes of Northern New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces gathered twice a year with white non-natives to do the hard work of repairing the painful, violent, and destructive relationship that has long been the hallmark between settlers and Indigenous people. The objective of these meetings was simple: to know and understand one another. A new book, “The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations” (University of Toronto) written by Shirley N. Hager and Mawopiyane, a Passamaquoddy term selected to represent the 13 co-authors, tells the story of these important meetings. “We descendants of these settlers, as well as the beneficiaries of this occupation who arrived later on this continent, have gone to great lengths, continuing to this present day, to pretend that this land is our rightful home.” Native members of these meetings write of their experiences, how these times were singular opportunities for respect and dialogue. “The Gatherings were different,” writes Wayne A. Newell, “there was a willingness to exchange.” And Barb Martin writes of the emptiness that results from a non-native division between heart and mind: “When you separate the heart and the mind you create a wound. And that wound feels like emptiness.” The wise, enlightening, and heart-opening book underscores, again and again, the power of communication, of being willing to make mistakes, of deep listening.

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