Indigenous Spirituality in Poetry

In this presentation, Louise Bernice Halfe (Sky Dancer) will read a selection of her work and discuss the ways in which spirituality operates in her own writing as well as how it manifests in Indigenous poetry more generally.

Louise Bernice Halfe was born in Two Hills, Alberta. Her Cree name is Sky Dancer. She was raised on the Saddle Lake Indian Reserve and attended Blue Quills Residential School.

Halfe’s first published poetry appeared in Writing the Circle: Women of Western Canada. She has since published four collections: Bear Bones & Feathers (1994, winner of the Canadian People’s Poet Award and finalist for the Spirit of Saskatchewan Award), Blue Marrow (1998, finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, Pat Lowther Award, and Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award), The Crooked Good (2007) and her most recent collection Burning in this Midnight Dream (2016, winner of three Saskatchewan Book Awards and the League of Canadian Poets Raymond Souster Award).

Halfe has served as poet laureate of Saskatchewan and is widely recognized for weaving Cree language and teachings into her works. A collection of Halfe’s work, Sohkeyihta, containing poems written across the expanse of her career, was published by Wilfrid Laurier Press in 2018.

Halfe has a Bachelor of Social Work and received an honorary Degree of Letters (PhD) from Wilfrid Laurier University (2012), University of Saskatchewan (2019) and Mount Royal University (2021).

In September 2020, she received the 2020 Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence which honours a Saskatchewan writer who has written a substantial body of acclaimed literary work and has had a significant impact on writing in Saskatchewan.

This event is part of the Spirituality as Land, Story and Relation series presented by the Department of Theological Studies with the support of the Faculty of Arts and Science. Visit the series page to view the full line-up of speakers for Fall 2020.