Calling Down the Sky

This poetry collection is fierce, raw and candid. By recounting her mothers residential school experience in a powerfully poetic narrative, Deerchild expertly illustrates the heartbreaking trauma of that tragic saga and how it complicates relationships over generations. Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Crusted Snow A tenth anniversary bilingual edition in English and Cree of Rosanna Deerchilds stunning collection about the intergenerational impacts of the Canadian residential school system.you want me toshare my storyok thenhere it ishere in the unwrittenhere in the broken linesof my body that can never forgetIn Calling Down the Sky, poet Rosanna Deerchild viscerally evokes her mothers experience within the residential school system, the Canadian governments system of violently removing Indigenous children from their homes, families, and languages in an explicit attempt to destroy Indigenous cultures and identities. With precise and intricate poetry, Deerchild weaves together the story of her mothers childhood and Deerchilds memories of her mother: her love of country music, her attempts to talk about what happened to her, how tightly she braided her daughters hair on the first day of school. In doing so, Deerchild illustrates the disruptive and devastating impacts of the residential school system on generations of families while also celebrating the life and culture of her mother and other survivors.Published for the first time in a bilingual edition of Cree and English, in time for the tenth anniversary of the original publication, Calling Down the Sky is an intimate and gorgeouslyevoked reckoning with a horrifying part of North American history.