Calling Down the Sky - by Rosanna Deerchild (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"This poetry collection is fierce, raw and candid. By recounting her mother's residential school experience in a powerfully poetic narrative, Deerchild expertly illustrates the heartbreaking trauma of that tragic saga and how it complicates relationships over generations." - Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Crusted Snow

A tenth anniversary bilingual edition in English and Cree of Rosanna Deerchild's stunning collection about the intergenerational impacts of the Canadian residential school system.

you want me to
share my story

ok then
here it is
here in the unwritten
here in the broken lines
of my body that can never forget

In Calling Down the Sky, poet Rosanna Deerchild viscerally evokes her mother's experience within the residential school system, the Canadian government's system of violently removing Indigenous children from their homes, families, and languages in an explicit attempt to destroy Indigenous cultures and identities. With precise and intricate poetry, Deerchild weaves together the story of her mother's childhood and Deerchild's memories of her mother: her love of country music, her attempts to talk about what happened to her, how tightly she braided her daughter's hair on the first day of school. In doing so, Deerchild illustrates the disruptive and devastating impacts of the residential school system on generations of families while also celebrating the life and culture of her mother and other survivors.

Published for the first time in a bilingual edition of Cree and English, in time for the tenth anniversary of the original publication, Calling Down the Sky is an intimate and gorgeously evoked reckoning with a horrifying part of North American history.

Review Quotes

"Rosanna Deerchild's poems roll off the tongue as easy as old country songs. With her deft hand, Deerchild finely tunes every word and weaves them together as intimately as she braids her girls' hair. Together, these poems create a story that sings with beautiful tension, amazing resilience, and love as big as the sky." - katherena vermette, author of The Break

"This poetry collection is fierce, raw and candid. It is also visceral, intricate and, above all, illuminating. By recounting her mother's residential school experience in a powerfully poetic narrative, Deerchild expertly illustrates the heartbreaking trauma of that tragic saga and how it complicates relationships over generations. By beautifully and elaborately exploring those relationships and that devastating history, she finds and celebrates the resilient and hopeful spirit that many residential school survivors, like her mother, have managed to retain in the face of horror and torment. As a result, calling down the sky is an essential read in understanding the true modern history of this land and in honouring the people who survived it." - Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of Crusted Snow

About the Author

Rosanna Deerchild has been storytelling for more than twenty years, currently as host of CBC Radio One's Unreserved, a show that shares Indigenous community, culture, and conversation. Rosanna has also developed and hosted This Place, a podcast series for CBC Books around the Indigenous anthology This Place: 150 Years Retold. Her debut poetry collection, this is a small northern town, won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Her second book, calling down the sky, is her mother's Residential School survivor story. A Cree from O-Pipon-Na-Piwan Cree Nation at South Indian Lake in northern Manitoba, Rosanna now lives and works in her found home of Winnipeg.