Pauline Johnson: Selected Poetry and Prose

One third poetry, two-thirds prose/short stories, and as it turns out, I preferred the prose. Both forms conveyed strong messages around positive representation of indigenous people and those of mixed heritage, as is the author herself, with a white British mother and Mohawk father. Admittedly, the language is out of date, and leaning towards Christian moralizing.

There's also something of an odd disconnect with certain poems/stories leaning towards lamenting what has been lost and condemning the colonizers and the missionaries, and others which seem congenial, even reverent in regards to the missionary efforts and the British roots of Canada. Understandable perhaps, given the author's own upbringing.

I can't say whether indigenous people reading today would take issue with how Johnson chose to depict indigenous characters/historical figures or what she chose to share, especially those stories framed as told by indigenous people to her which had "never been revealed to any English-speaking person."

What I can say is, given the majority of the work comes from 1913, and my tendency to feel distanced from earlier literature based on the difference in writing style a hundred years or more makes, I was flabbergasted by how absorbing and accessible this writing was. Again, poetry still a struggle, but the prose, especially those pieces selected from The Moccasin Maker and The Shagganappi makes me want to track those collections down and read further.

The largest prose piece is the story of Johnson's mother's life, My Mother: beautiful and affecting, it's primarily the tale of her parents' love story, how family reacted to and accepted the marriage, how much her father was loved and the important and difficult work he did, the fact that her mother had a very lonely childhood, and her father ensured she was loved and had a welcoming home.

The other stand out tale for me was As It Was in the Beginning: DAMN. Brutally effective story, on one level the woman scorned takes her vengeance, on another, a person eloquently reflects on the hypocrisy of mission schools indoctrinating native children, attempting to 'save them' and devaluing them as humans at the same instant.

⚠️Child abuse, racial stereotypes, racism, discussion of residential schools, outdated language