workshops WITH SMOKII

Moving from being a "Good Visitor" to Honouring our Relations: a Workshop on "Land Acknowledgements" 

Join poet and Indigenous Studies PhD Candidate, Smokii Sumac (Ktunaxa) as he invites you out of your comfort zone and onto the land in this critical look at the current trend of Land Acknowledgements across Turtle Island. Smokii was inspired to create this workshop as he recognizes how many people and organizations see acknowledging the land as a "check box" to "get right." Smokii challenges the notion of being "right" when it comes to our relationship to the lands we live on and the people who are from here according to their creation/emergence stories—people whose ancestors have been here for millenia. For those living on territories far away from where their/our own ancestors are from, what does it mean to be a good visitor? Is it enough? Can we go further into understanding ourselves as good relations? In the spirit of relationality, kinship, and decolonial love, Smokii asks you to consider your own relationship to the places and spaces we take up, and the people who are still here in those places and spaces, and bring these interrogations and understandings into our meetings, businesses, buildings, events, homes, and lives. If you've ever found yourself afraid of "doing it wrong," this workshop will ask you to challenge yourself to get out of the right/wrong binary and instead consider what honouring your relations could look like. Come imagine and dream new ways of understanding the world and our place in it with Smokii! 

Love Poems for the End of the World (Creative Writing Workshop) 

In this workshop join two-spirit poet, Smokii Sumac, author of you are enough: love poems for the end of the world (Kegedonce Press, 2018), while he introduces love poems of all kinds, and helps you learn to write your own! Smokii's expertise in the love poem began through his own 2-year process of writing daily haiku and posting on social media. Over that time, he found himself writing haiku verses on gender, Indigenous ceremony, his cat, transitioning, changing his name, his crushes, grief, loss, and dating. Throughout all of it, he realized that at the heart of every poem, is love. And when we find ourselves where we are now, with a growing climate crisis, with racism and hatred being emboldened through elections, with so much loss and pain, the only answer that Smokii can see is choosing to love. And what's the best way to spread love? There are many great ways, of course, but for Smokii, it's always been the love poem. He's written love poems to his car, to his mother's great great grandmother, to his partners, his friends, and his cat! And now he wants to help you spread the love! Whether you are feeling sexy, asexy, (or maybe both!), aromantic, or into romance, whether you want to write a love poem to your favourite smoked meat sandwich, or vegan brownie, or to the land you were born from, or the ocean you haven't seen in years, or maybe you have a crush or wedding vows to write! Whatever your pleasure, all are welcome to come share what you love, who you love, where you love, why you love, and when, on the page. (please bring a notebook and pen)

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