Love Poet of the Apocalypse
Bringing Radical Honesty
past talks performances & PUBLICATIONS
ka paǂkinin̓tik
or
there are things our women have taught me:
1. give generously without worrying where more will come from;
2. laugh deep and hard with each other more than you cry;
3. learn everything you can and teach it freely;
4. know where you are going and go all the way-get the doctoral degree, get on council, hell, don’t stop there, you can be nasukin-you can lead your nation;
5. speak softly walk gently rock your babies to sleep;
6. raise your voice in song or anger-never be silent in the face of injustice;
7. feed everyone, including yourself;
8. light the fires, call in the drums, join hands-you never know when you’ll need a friend-honour your relations;
9. share the good stories alongside the tough ones-share whatever story feels right, from the you light up my lifes to the ain’t it awfuls, and especially the sexy ones-on that note
10. fall in love and celebrate every orgasm;
11. hold your loved ones close and breath in the scent of them;
12. grieve loss as deeply as you love, without shame or fear;
13. carry the hearts of your sisters your grandmothers your daughters born or yet to come your aunties and nieces and cousins-carry them in your heart;
14. keep going. This is not the end.
Smokii Sumac, you are enough: love poems for the end of the world
In his debut poetry collection you are enough: love poems for the end of the world, Smokii Sumac 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. In this moving collection, 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.
Winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award in Published Poetry in English and short-listed for the 2020 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers.
Poetry Performance
poetry london online
honoring indigenous voices: navigating intergenerational trauma on the journey home
seattle u
Every Child Matters Conversation on Reconciliation with Smokii Sumac
Columbia Basin Environmental Education Network