Poetry. Native American Studies. After reading this collection of poems, you will never look at mothers--at the playground, at the elementary school, or across the kitchen table--in quite the same way again. Beginning with a poem of pregnancy, written by her twenty-five year old self, Arnott leads us through a span of twenty years of inward- and outward-facing struggles, centred firmly in the ongoing work of becoming a mother. Living on the thresholds between races--the poet is a prairie-born Metis--and between the generations, Arnott articulates the challenges of mothering in heart, body, and mind. Joanne Arnott, a Metis/mixed blood writer, was born in Winnipeg, and has lived a cumulative thirty years in Musqueam traditional territories on the west coast. Mother to six children ranging in age from three to twenty years, Joanne has been a literary performer and publishing poet since the mid-1980s. She worked for many years as an Unlearning Racism facilitator, and continues to incorporate social justice perspectives and peer counselling approaches in her work.

Author City: Richmond, BC CAN

Joanne Arnott (born December 16, 1960) is a Canadian Métis writer. Arnott was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Arnott's works are intimate with an activist slant, exploring the issues faced by a mixed-race girl and woman in poverty, the family, danger, love and childbirth. She writes about these topics from personal experience, as a Métis and a mother of six. She received the Gerald Lampert Award for her 1991 collection of poetry Wiles of Girlhood. Arnott lives in British Columbia with her family.