Böcker av Garry Gottfriedson

In his latest collection, Secwépemc rancher and renowned poet Garry Gottfriedson explores the fraught mechanics of contemporary masculinity, politics, and love. Bent Back Tongue is a raw examination of love, identity, politics, masculinity, and vulnerability. Through sharp honesty and revealing satire, Gottfriedson delves into Canadian colonialism and the religious political paradigms shaping experiences of a Secwépemc First Nations man. This is a book that tears through deceptions that both Canada and the church impose on their citizens. Gottfriedson tackles the darkest layers of a shared colonial history; at the same time, the poems in Bent Back Tongue are a celebration of love, land, family, and the self.

Garry Gottfriedson offers a suite of poems that peel away the skin of contemporary first nations people to reveal an inside view of their experience. He pulls no punches as he explores their challenges. He speaks of "minds full of anticipation" yet with "tongues pointing arrowheads". Telling it "like it is", he encourages readers to examine what lies inside many of today's native youth, who are "afraid to live / afraid to die / afraid of ourselves." He draws attention to the rape of the natural environment, the skin of Mother Earth, when he speaks of "forests being / eaten from the inside out". He tackles the political dysfunction within present-day band management, calling the leaders "political bullies" who "sweet-talk their way to stage management / ... then vote for themselves" to perpetuate internalised oppression. But as the collection continues, Gottfriedson's love for his land begins to emerge, and he calls on the mysterious Horsechild when he says: "I will bind the drying racks once again / with hemp to make ready / the rows for drying salmon / so that beneath your skin / the mountains will be forever abundant." Here the age-old rituals of the people and the land return, for the skin of the land provides comfort and assurance that some things will never change.

This edgy collection explores themes of duality that exist in the parallel worlds of cowboys and Indians. Often satirical, 'Whiskey Bullets' is a testament to adaptability, turning tragedy into humour and pain into passion. It speaks to the unique experience of growing up aboriginal, on the Tk'emlups Reserve (Secwepemc) near Kamloops, with strong First Nation values and traditions, while at the same time immersed in the cowboy and ranching culture of the interior of BC. Gottfriedson skilfully balances his indigenous vision and contemporary concerns, creating a blend of imagery that stimulates the mind's eye like never before. Shattering the cowboy's code of ethics he unveils hidden truths, unspoken and often ignored, bringing to the fore inescapable issues of gender, sexuality, race and politics, infused with aboriginal attitude. Form and content are carefully conceived to celebrate the distinctive aboriginal individuality, the 'shape-shifting' attitudes that are required when one lives simultaneously in two cultures -- Secwepemc and white -- and their two languages. Candid and challenging, Whiskey Bullets is thought-provoking and engaging.