North End Love Songs

by Katherena Vermette

For Katherena Vermette, Winnipeg’s North End is a neighbourhood of colourful birds, stately elms, and always wily rivers. It is where a brother’s disappearance is trivialized by local media and police because he is young and aboriginal. It is also where young girls share secrets, movies, cigarettes, Big Gulps and stories of love—where a young mother full of both maternal trepidation and joy watches her small daughters as they play in the park.

“In North End Love Songs, Katherena Vermette uses spare language and brief, telling sketches to illuminate the aviary of a prairie neighbourhood. Vermette’s love songs are unconventional and imminent, an examination and a celebration of family and community in all weathers, the beautiful as well as the less clement conditions. This collection is a very moving tribute, to the girls and the women, the boys and the men, and the loving trouble that has forever transpired between us.”
– Joanne Arnott

“From a mixed-blood Métis woman with Mennonite roots, Kate weaves a story that winds its way through the north end (Nor-tend) of Winnipeg. It’s a story of death, birth, survival, beauty and ugliness; through it all there are glimmers of hope, strength, and a will to survive whatever this city throws at you.” – Duncan Mercredi

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Canada, Nonfiction, Book Club, Female Authors, Read For School

108 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2012

About the author

Katherena Vermette is a Canadian writer, who won the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry in 2013 for her collection North End Love Songs. Vermette is of Metis descent and from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was a MFA student in creative writing at the University of British Columbia.

Her children's picture book series The Seven Teachings Stories was published by Portage and Main Press in 2015. In addition to her own publications, her work has also been published in the literary anthology Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water. She is a member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective of Manitoba, and edited the anthology xxx ndn: love and lust in ndn country in 2011.

Vermette has described her writing as motivated by an activist spirit, particularly on First Nations issues. The title of her book refers to Winnipeg's North End.

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It should be part of the Canadian literature canon. It makes you think of what we are losing with the disappeared women, girls and men. Having lived in Winnipeg for years it was like a return to the city.

[Sara ➽ Ink Is My Sword · Rating 3 out of 5]

For class 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Richard Van Camp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katherena Vermette's "North End Love Songs" has left me shivering with awe. You have to read this collection to believe what poetry can do!!

My favourite poems in this collection are "new years", "indians", "heavy metal ballads", "epitaph", and I will read "I am a North End Girl" every time I need inspiration. Wow. Katherena Vermette, I hope you are very proud of yourself. I sure am!

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel all the feels.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Katherena Vermette and I’m making it my life’s mission to read everything she writes.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I don’t really know how to talk about poetry, but I loved this collection. Heart wrenching and hopeful.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poems that are steeped in nostalgia and Winnipeg landmarks! My favourite was the most heart breaking and about her brother. If you liked this definitely read "The Break" which I gave 5/5.

[Zoë Birss · Rating 4 out of 5]

indians drown
the family finds out
happens everyday
this land floods
with dead indians
this river swells
freezes
breaks open
cold arms of ice
welcomes indians

From "indians" by Katherena Vermette
as published in North End Love Songs, 2012, 2015

North End Love Songs is a stark, dark, honest reflection on the grief of a young Métis woman over the tragic loss of her brother. She writes of life in the "nort-end" of Winnipeg, populated by FNMI people, her friends and family. She writes honestly of her love and loss, and of the irritants and heartaches of sibling relationship, complicated as it can be.

It is a beautiful and vulnerable look at life as it is too often for FNMI Canadians. I recommend this award winning poetry collection to all Canadian readers.

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi, Everyone! Please check out my interview with Winnipeg poet Katherena Vermette as we discuss her latest collection North End Love Songs (The Muses Company, 2012), winner of the 2013 Governor General's Literary Award in Poetry. Read the interview and 3 poems from the book on my TTQ Blog now. http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...

[mike f. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5**

lowkey read this real quick in a book store. this collection gave me a lust for life with such beautiful poems and medaphors. truly inspiring.

[Else Watt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a masterpiece. Every single person- especially every single canadian should read at least one of Vermette’s pieces of work. It’s raw and real and unapologetically states the truth.

[bethaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow wow wow. i read "selkirk avenue" for class and wrote an essay about it and it never quite left my head so i picked up the source material. christ, some of these poems are gonna live in my ribcage for the rest of my life.

[Tyrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I read this for school and it was better than I thought it would be.

[Philip Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

i started this book a bit sour on its simple language, but it wormed its way into my heart with the sparse lines and honest description of trial and tragedy. i think Katherena Vermette's line-breaks are deceptively powerful--as soon as i saw the cummings quote that started one of the sections in the book, i knew i had to pay a little bit more attention, and it was a well-rewarded pursuit. There are some incredibly moving uses of incomplete syntax to add so much extra meaning to some of these poems. From page 86, "in winter when / you can barely tell / where the ground / ends / and the river / begins." At a glance, this seems like overwrought enjambment, but the way the clauses are cut in half so delicately gives them so much additional ambiguity and strength: "in winter when"--as tho the season itself is the entity of a question that remains unanswered. "you can barely tell / where the ground"--Vermette plays with diction in several places in this collection, and 'where the ground' sounds almost like the seedier city vernacular she hints at in other poems. A young man asking, in his drunken state, "where the ground?" "ends / and the river / begins" mimics the physical appearance of a long tongue of water jutting out in something solid, and the way the prepositional words are their own lines lets them flow into the definition of the river like water itself.

There were a few moments in this book, especially early on, where the diction did feel too simple--the imagistic bird portrait poems, while hinting at a haiku-like tranquility, often felt uninteresting by themselves. i often wonder about what poetry says in regards to human tragedy--do we search for the moments we are hurt to make them into good stories to tell? Is a book of poetry worth something only if the author has suffered? i don't mean to demean Vermette's attention to the physical--but the earlier poems didn't pack the same punch as the ones later in the book, which is why i'm keeping the last star in my pocket.

Still an entirely worthwhile collection that has an intriguing, un-obvious mastery lurking in its pages. Would recommend to anyone interested in contemporary poetry, Canadian or otherwise.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katherena Vermette steeps readers into the cold, angst-ridden landscape of Winnipeg's north end through piercing poetry. The rhythms of life and tragedy are reflected through her words in a way that makes her feel close, yet worlds away. The Indigenous experience, and the motifs of nature and the seasons cradle the reader's emotions before throwing them overboard and scooping them back up again, forcing them to watch. North End Love Songs demonstrates Vermette's short-form talents before her long-form breakout work, The Break. This collection can be read as a companion to that remarkable piece of literature.

[BRAT · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic. I had got it for one of my university English classes, and I did not know if I would like it. However, I started reading the poems, and I have not looked back. It is one of my favourite books and set of poetry. What works is that the author talks about her life and experiences and how she views the world. My favourite poem is called “redbird” and it in encapsulates reclaiming oneself and freedom. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves poetry and truth.

Re-read it.

Amazing poems.

[Care · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a tough book to rate. I thought the first half was okay, none of the poems standing out to me. Even now, I can't remember any of them. The second half was awesome in a tragic, beautifully written, emotional way that captured the plight and fight of Indigenous Canadians. The resistance to stereotypes, the tragedy of untimely death, the systemic violence of racism, sexism and classism.

[Colette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly moving for its familiar location and personal ties, NELS will leave you with images of loss and injustice with an 80's feel. Larger than life is the character of Wayne, metal head, older brother and tragic anti-hero. This cri de coeur should resonate in all compassionate souls.

[Aly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avec ce recueil de poésie, l'auteure nous fait nager entre le quotidien de sa jeunesse, l'inquiétude d'un drame qui se prépare et puis la fatalité du deuil. Les amies, la famille, l'école; tous ces éléments qui façonnent d'une façon ou d'une autre.

[Danica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a required book for a course I was taking but then ended up dropping, so I haven’t actually read it yet but it’s been sitting in my house for a few years. I thought it would be a nice short one to read now to squeeze one more book into my count for the year. It’s poetry, and I don’t read much poetry. Most of the poetry I’ve read was in high school IB English. We read a lot do Sylvia Plath, some Ted Hughes, and a little bit of Ocean Vuong. That makes up most of what I know about poetry, so what I learned reading and analyzing that poetry was how I approached this poetry. It’s a collection of poems, but they’re connected and tell a story, which is very nice. She takes us through the seasons in the North End and the seasons of her life. It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s very personal and discusses her grief regarding the loss of her brother. She discusses violence against Indigenous people and the prevalence of missing and murdered Indigenous people and how they aren’t given enough attention. She discusses grief and sadness, but there’s so much anger in the sadness. It’s very real and raw and expresses her complex emotions. Despite the sadness, there is beauty. She shows how even in the most urban part of the city there is nature and life and beauty. She uses figurative language about nature (especially birds) to describe human experiences, which I love. She also mentions elm trees many times, which are an iconic Winnipeg tree, which I also love. There is no punctuation, which I thought was interesting. It creates an interesting flow. The flow is also created by how the line breaks are placed, which also gives some words double meaning. Overall it’s a very personal, very Winnipeg, very beautiful book and I quite enjoyed it.

[hiaa123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and heartbreaking poems about Indigenous women's experience in Winnipeg. The November section contains poems about Vermette's lost brother. Poems of grief and love and loss. And joy too.

family
"elms around us
like aunties
uncles
cousins
all different
but with the same skin

the tall one with thinning foliage
sticking straight up
branches scratching at the sky

the wide one
split in two
half way up
looks like scissors
or two legs
bent and kicking

the gnarled one with
warts all over its face

the one with
the swirled branch
curved out over
cathedral avenue
looped like hair
around a finger

but her favourites
are the ones by the river
they spread low
and stay close
to the eart

those ones she can
climb into
lean against
the strong bark
rest her small body
within their round arms

their sharp leaves
reach out over the river

she watches how
the waves fold
into each other
like family


parkgrrl
"she runs barefoot
in the park
hair in her face
brushed aside
with a quick
chubby palm

daylight dances
on her pure
dark skin
as she rattles off verses
buries caterpillars
in the sand
calls weeds
flowers

she would
stay there
forever

make the teeter totter
her dinner table
cuddle up to sleep
on a swing
and sing lullabies
to bugs
as the sun goes down

when she wakes
she would have only to
kick her legs
to the pale clouds
and breathe
a breakfast
of morning sun"

[Renee Cronley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was completely engrossed in this poetry book, to the point where I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I could continue reading. I flew through it, no pun intended, as the beginning poems were titled after birds. I was captivated by the author’s ability to effortlessly merge metaphors of a young girl’s upbringing in the north end of Winnipeg, skillfully intertwining the surroundings, circumstances, and the distinct characteristics of those particular birds. Being an avid birder, I couldn’t help but appreciate the cleverness of this.

I especially enjoyed: yellowbird, winter, wildflowers, ghosts, under a shroud of trees, picture, lost, mixed tape, indians, heavy metal ballads.

I find it fascinating how the poetry book evolves, initially concentrating on the girl and then delving into her bond with her brother, especially when he goes missing and the aftermath of his death and how she copes with it.

I highly recommend this poetry book! The book’s well-constructed chronology transported me through the author’s life, creating an immersive experience akin to reading a mini memoir.

I would definitely read more works by Katherine Vermette.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of this collection of poetry Duncan Mercredi writes... "From a mixed-blood Metis woman with Mennonite roots, Kate weaves a story that winds its way through the north end (Nor-tend) of Winnipeg. It's a story of death, birth, survival, beauty, and ugliness; through it all there are glimmers on hope, strength, and a will to survive whatever the city throws at you."
The poems here are simple, at times almost barren, and they contain a hint of danger; a missing boy, cold dangerous streets, the possibility of foolish choices being made, but they still present a touch of hope, and a chance for success in the context of supportive relationships. Great reading!

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read THE STRANGERS a few months ago, and I’ve been determined to read more of Vermette’s work after seemingly everyone I know has been throwing THE BREAK at me for years. I thought I’d start my journey with her first poetry collection, as I’m a fan of her later collection RIVER WOMAN. And … wow. NORTH END LOVE SONGS contains the same beauty, love, and rage as all of those books. I can’t imagine stumbling across this book in 2012 and knowing that this is a writer who would shape Canadian literature for decades to come, but it’s all there on the page.

[emmacuzzo]

Life’s greatest joys and despairs. The beauty in simplicity. The family tree. The warming of the sun.

From “picture” -

“her mother picks
several pictures
to put in the newspaper
different ones showing
different things
multiple profiles

but the newspaper takes
the one with
his hat hung low
half his face in shadow

the headline reads:
Native Man Missing After Binge

she cuts it out
folds it in two
puts it in
a photo album

she thinks he would like
that they called him
a Man”

[Nate Lawliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is a bit lacklustre with a bunch of poetry that's more just I guess linebreak description without much actual interesting writing. However, if we ignore the first half (besides a few poems that were actually good, because it's not all bad), this is easily a 4/5 or even a 4.5/5 because the last half is genuinely so good. It's a much more personal telling about the disappearance of the author's brother, and it's great writing-wise.

[gene ✧˖°. · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s either im biased because I do not resonate with the topics of the poems or this genuinely could’ve been an email about a bird guide, my fault for once again traversing the genre of poetry where the sentences are making a desperate attempt of breaking up with each other. In the first half none of the poems stood out prominently, but the second half tells a compelling story in a way, I’ll give it that.

[Valérie Forgues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lu en français, dans la belle traduction d'Hélène Lépine, sous le titre "Ballades d'amour du North End", publié chez Mémoire d'encrier en 2017. (Je viens d'apprendre comment ajouter un livre manuellement sur goodreads, yé :)

Page 103 :
"quand on est
ivre
dans l'hiver
glacial
mordant
tout le sang
afflue
à la surface
de la peau

on devient
étourdi

on perd le nord
presque instantanément"

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is dynamite, one I come back to again and again when I’m looking for inspiration. The short snappy lines make it ideal for re-reading. If you liked “The Break” you’ll love this book as well and may recognize some of the characters in the “birds.” Be prepared to cry. Can’t wait for “River Woman” to come out!

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Katherena Vermette’s novel The Break, so I was really eager to read more of her writing. Generally I don’t read a lot of poetry, as it doesn’t grab me in the same way that novels do. However I found Vermette’s poems in this volume (much like her novel) powerful and honest. I appreciated the simplicity. This was evocative and sad and made me want to learn more.