TIO’TIA:KE/MONTREAL WALKING TOUR
In collaboration with :
Tio’tia:ke, meaning “where the rivers meet” in Mohawk, has had many names, been a gathering place for many First Nations, and is now a point of confluence for Indigenous people and many other peoples alike. And yet, the history of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal most of us know is a white settler story—an often selective, sometimes doctored, at best incomplete account. In Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, Indigenous and settler of colour authors, members of communities underrepresented by the telling of that story, begin to contribute necessary perspectives, personal records, and missing chapters to the history of the place they’ve called home.
Content only available in English
Introducing the Tio’Tia:ke Montreal Literary Walking Tour
A presentation written and narrated by Darby Minott Bradford
Tio’tia:ke, Mooniyang, Montréal. In the wake of past and ongoing stages of colonialism, Tara McGowan-Ross, Cason Sharpe and Symon Henry find themselves, like many of the rest of us, turning toward the decolonial, the postcolonial, and the ante- and para-colonial in an effort to shed light on tucked-away places, histories, communities and realities which have also defined the richness of Montreal.
(Only available in English)
Born on the eastern end of the Cosmos
An original text written and narrated by Symon Henry
Monday, October 24, 2022
An intrusive Google Street View glance seemed like a good first second impression of my childhood home, three decades after my family and I left Ville Saint-Laurent for the Great Northern Dream of Cartierville. Surprisingly enough, it had not occurred to me earlier, despite the 15-year existence of said Street View, to sneak a peek at my seminal frame of reference.
My inner salmon was not so eager to venture back to its original stream.
(Only available in English)
Failure to recognize
An original text written and narrated by Tara McGowan-Ross
If we look south — Montreal south, not true south — towards the great white spire on the St-Jacques Bridge, we are situated in a relatively new dividing line in Montreal’s west end. We are in Notre-Dame-de-Grace, or NDG, which is a middle-class, first-ring suburb of the city. It is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse in the city. The electoral district also includes Westmount, which begins seven blocks to the east — a historically English neighborhood, which was once the richest community in Canada.
(Only available in English)
The Lessons of the Hall
An original text written and narrated by Cason Sharpe
Tanya lost her glasses. She’s blind as a bat without them. She texts me to come find her in the lobby of the Hall. I’m on the seventh floor, where I usually sit between classes, or maybe I’m in an empty seminar room, studying. I go to the lobby and see her standing perfectly still amidst hoards of students running late to class or rushing for tables at the campus bar. She doesn’t see me until I’m a few inches from her face, at which point she breathes a sigh of relief as I take her by the arm.
(Only available in English)
DISCOVER OUR AUTHORS’ BOOKS
DARBY MINOTT BRADFORD
Dream of No One but Myself, Darby Minott Bradford, Brick Books, 2021
SYMON HENRY
L’ongle le vernis, Symon Henry et Nicole Brossard, Le Noîrot, 2022
L’amour des oiseaux moches, Symon Henry, OMRI, 2020
Son corps parlait pour ne pas mourir, Symon Henry, De la Tournure Coop de solida éditions, 2016
TARA McGOWAN-ROSS
Nothing Will Be Different, Tara McGowan-Ross, Dundurn Press, 2021
The Scorpion Season, Tara McGowan-Ross, Insomniac Press, 2019
Girth, Tara McGowan-Ross, Insomniac Press, 2016
CASON SHARPE
Our Lady of Perpetual Realness, Cason Sharpe, Metatron Press, 2017
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE PROJECT
DARBY MINOTT BRADFORD
Darby Minott Bradford is a poet, translator, and editor based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). He is the author of the A.M. Kein QWF Prize for Poetry winning, and the Griffin Poetry Prize, Governor General’s Literary Award, and Gerard Lampert Memorial Award finalist Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021), an interdisciplinary inquiry into the versioning aspects of Bradford and his family’s histories with abuse and trauma. His work has also appeared in Brick, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead, fillingStation, The Capilano Review, and elsewhere. Bottom Rail on Top, Bradford’s second book of poetry, and House Within a House, his translation from the French of Désormais, ma demeure by Nicholas Dawson, are both forthcoming from Brick Books in 2023.
TARA McGOWAN-ROSS
Tara McGowa-Ross is an urban Mi’kmaq writer and artist. She is the author of Girth, Scorpion Season, and the memoir Nothing Will Be Different. She hosts Drawn & Quaterly’s Indigenous Literatures book club, writes on substack, and is a critic of independent and experimental theatre for Broadwayworld. Visit her at girthgirl.ca
SYMON HENRY
Symon Henry’s artistic practice is based on the interaction between three major axes in their creations, namely concert music, visual arts and poetry. This transdisciplinary approach is particularly reflected in their sound paintings—instrumental or performative graphic scores, interpreted here and there by musicians and artists with as sinuous a journey as possible. Their poetry and sound paintings collection L’amour des oiseaux moches (2020), finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards and Émilie-Nelligan Award) represented an important culmination in their journey, having been the subject of a publication by Omri editions and a major production of the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+).
CASON SHARPE
Cason Sharpe is a writer based in Toronto. His first book of short stories, Our Lady of Perpetual Realness, was published by Metatron Press in 2017, and his subsequent writing can be found in various places in print and online.
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