Vital bilingual poetry by Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon
Uiesh / Somewhere consists of short poems that speak directly to the reader, without artifice or pretension. They arise from Joséphine Bacon’s experience as an Innu woman, whose life has taken her from the nomadic ways of her Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan, or Innu Territory, to the clamour and bustle of the city. Wherever she is, the poet and Elder is attentive to the smallest details of her environment … from the moon and the stars, the aurorae borealis, the falling snow, the changing seasons, to the sirens of fire engines and ambulances and the noise of a busy bar night. From her quiet centre, she listens to the voices of the Old Ones, whose stories are alive within her, and looks back at the beauty and the pain of her long life.
“A song bathed in light and wisdom, in one moment, true, embodied, powerful, with no secrets … the moment is the whole book. I opened the book at the end of the day, I began the song until the end of the night, I was guided to somewhere in the *Nutshimit *…” (trans.) –Mylène Bouchard on Uiesh / Somewhere, in Le Libraire, no. 109
Translated by Phyllis Aronoff
Phyllis Aronoff translates fiction, non-fiction and poetry from French, solo or with co-translator Howard Scott, with whom she won the Governor General’s Award for translation in 2018 for Descent Into Darkness, by Edem Awumey. Among her recent translations is Message Sticks, by Innu poet Joséphine Bacon. In addition to literature, she has translated widely in the humanities. The Wanderer, her translation of La Québécoite, by Régine Robin, received the Jewish Book Award for fiction in 1998. Her co-translations with Howard Scott include four books by Madeleine Gagnon and Two Solicitudes, conversations between Victor-Lévy Beaulieu and Margaret Atwood. Scott and Aronoff received the Quebec Writers’ Federation Translation Award (2002) for The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, by Gilles Havard, and several of their translations have been finalists for various other awards.
By Joséphine Bacon
Joséphine Bacon is an Innu poet born in 1947 in Passamit, Nitassinan / Québec, and now living in Montréal. Her poetry has won many awards, including the Indigenous Voices Award, the international Ostana Prize (for writers whose mother tongue is a language of limited diffusion), and the Prix des libraires du Québec, and has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry and the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal.
news | 2023-04-25
Four Talonbooks on Ms. Magazine's List of Best Poetry Collections of the Year
…Okot Bitek , HARROWINGS by Cecily Nicholson , and Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon and translated by Phyllis …
news | 2023-03-01
4 Talonbooks Titles on CBC’s List of Must-Read Spring Poetry Titles
…nikihci-âniskotâpân , Song & Dread , Uiesh / Somewhere , and A Net of Momentary Sapphire on this list of … become normalized when there is no other option. Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon and translated by Phyllis …
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