Indigenous Poetics in Canada

21. A Conversation of Influence, Tradition, and Indigenous Poetics: An Interview with Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

21 A Conversation of Influence, Tradition, and Indigenous Poetics: An Interview with Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm Conducted by Rhiannon Johnson When I was first asked to do this interview with Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, I was overwhelmed with anticipation and excitement that I would have such an opportunity. Having been a fan of her book of poetry, my heart is a stray bullet, I was thrilled to have the chance to ask her a few questions after reading her work. Once I got more into her academic pieces, I realized that she is not only a talented poet, but also an extremely articulate intellectual with the ability to weave together words like cloth. I began to feel intimidated at the approaching interview while preparing the following questions. When the day finally came, I travelled to her home and was greeted with a friendly, warm face. She explained that she had just put her sons down for a nap. When we sat down to talk, I realized that Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is not only a talented artist and academic, but also a warm and humorous individual with a wealth of knowledge concerning the Indigenous literary world and where that fits into the larger context of Indigenous art and its significance. rhiannon johnson (rj): What got you started in writing poetry? kateri akiwenzie-damm (kad): Poetry specifically I can’t actually say, but I think it was just part of an interest in writing and reading. My maternal grandmother, my Anishnaabe grandmother, Irene Akiwenzie , was a writer and a voracious reader. I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. I spent summers, weekends, holidays—we all 263 264 R H I A N N O N J O H N S O N did—at my grandparents’ place. It was just filled with books—there were just shelves and shelves of books, and my grandmother always had one or two books on her bedside table that she was reading. So, I was really fortunate that I grew up around that. She also wrote for the local newspapers and had a specific time—Monday morning at eleven—when she would sit at her desk in the midst of all this chaos and write her column. Everyone respected it so much and I can remember the grandkids—you know, we’d either tiptoe around in the living room or we’d go outside so that she could write. I think in retrospect that was really important to see that people respected her work as a writer so much, and I’m sure that had an impact on me. I come by it honestly because my grandmother was like that. She was part of the Kegadonce family (which her grandfather and father were named). It means an orator or speaker. My grandmother was also a public speaker and she told stories, so I think that interest in words and language and story comes naturally through her. My grandfather was a little bit different. He was more a man of few words, but they carried so much weight so I learned a lot from his way of speaking. His first language was Anishnaabemowin and he also spoke a bit of French, so English was his second or maybe third language. Then I had a Polish grandmother, who wasn’t very well educated. She had come to Canada with the wars, the loss of her family, and so on. She had only about a grade three education and spoke English as a second language and with a fairly heavy Polish accent. She actually spoke several languages, but Polish was her first language. She worked as a cook and so she was around all these different kinds of people and other staff for these wealthy people whose homes she lived in and for whom she worked. She was always telling little anecdotes and the weirdest jokes. Some of them were really funny and some of them were quite crude, but it was the kind of stuff that I guess the staff told in the kitchen. So it was really interesting because I learned a lot from each of their ways of speaking and using language and working with as much or as little as they knew about English. rj: Can you tell me about your influences as a poet? kad: As a poet...I would say a big part of it is that I really see my work as a poet, as a writer, as arising from traditions...