How might poetic practices undermine racist ideologies and colonialism, engendering ecological attentiveness, and anomalous and compassionate communities? Christine Stewart’s Treaty 6 Deixis takes up these timely and pressing questions as it investigates what it means to be a non-Indigenous inhabitant of Canada’s Treaty 6 territory, “in this city, on this land, in this country, on this planet, in a way that acknowledges and honours all my obligations and all my relations, the complex web of connective tissues that keep me here.” (Deixis is a word or phrase – like “this,” “that,” “ now,” “then” – that points to the time, place, or situation in which a speaker is speaking or a writer is writing.)

Written beside the kisiskâciwani-sîpiy (North Saskatchewan River) on Treaty 6 land – which encompasses most of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan – this gorgeous long poem reinstates and re-sounds the extent of the author’s obligations, considering the ways in which language can be formally and contextually engaged to refigure and potentially re-articulate the world. Treaty 6 Deixis, Stewart’s long-anticipated first solo trade collection, is an exemplary, ethically engaged, and much-needed exploration, and a step towards reconciliation.

Christine Stewart is an Associate Professor in the English and Film Studies Department at the University of Alberta. She studies poetics, and is a founding member of the Writing Revolution in Place Research Collective. Recent publications include “Propositions from Under Mill Creek Bridge” in Sustaining the West (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2015); “On Treaty Six, under the Mill Creek Bridge” in Toward. Some. Air. (Banff Centre Press, 2015); “This—from Treaty Six” in Dusie; and The Odes (Nomados Press, 2016; shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award).

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