Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau’s third volume of poetry, Poésie en marche pour Sindy in its original French, now has an English translation by Susan Ouriou. The timing is meaningful, marking ten years since the disappearance of the Abitibiwinnik woman Sindy Ruperthouse – which triggered public outrage, a wave of allegations of police neglect, and, eventually, the creation of a Public Inquiry Commission. Pésémapéo Bordeleau dedicates the book to Sindy’s family, whose crushing grief fills the verses:

Poetry Marching for Sindy
Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau
Translated by Susan Ouriou

Inanna Publications
$18.95
paper
72pp
9781771339742

Long is the winter

The wait for spring

With its sun burning

The carpet of snow

Shrouding the hope

Johnny and Émily hold onto

This is a book of silences: the long blanket of winter, the blank of the page always larger than the poems themselves, the passivity of government, the unease of what to say before tremendous loss… The poet steps in to show what can/should/must be said – or asked – putting questions to Sindy and the witnesses of her fate, and letting the silent answers ring:

Sindy   you keep your distance still

But we long for your presence

The ceremonies await you

Absence becomes a poetic form, charging words with the power of a ritual – the missing ceremony for a missing person. The minimalism of the work points to the unbearable scale of the ongoing tragedy of missing Indigenous women. This too is a function of poetry: a gathering of voices marching against silence.mRb