A Really Good Brown Girl

by Marilyn Dumont

Poetry. Native American Studies. These are Indian poems; Canadian poems; human poems. Marilyn Dumont's Metis heritage offers her challenges that few of us welcome. Here she turns them into opportunities: in a voice that is fierce, direct, and true, she explores and transcends the multiple boundaries imposed by society on the self. She mocks, with exasperation and sly humour, the banal exploitation of Indianness; more-Indian-than-thou one-upmanship; and white condescension and ignorance. She celebrates the person, clearly observing, who defines her own life. "In a world where cultural fascism is becoming the politically correct norm, we desperately need courageous voices who shout Stop! Think! Marilyn Dumont is one such voice. She is a Metis poet with attitude and I applaud her courage and clarity"--Beth Cuthand.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Canada, School, Canadian Literature, Womens, Fiction

77 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Marilyn Dumont’s poetry has won provincial and national awards. She has been the writer-in-residence at five Canadian universities and the Edmonton Public Library as well as an advisor in the Aboriginal Emerging Writers Program at the Banff Centre. She teaches sessional creative writing for Athabasca University and Native studies and English for the University of Alberta. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Reviews

[Kier Scrivener · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really recommend this wonderful collection of poetry from a Metis woman living in rural Alberta and her experience. Raw, poignant and evocative with incredible writing. My collection includes an author note looking back at the work twenty years later.

[sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars
I have never been the biggest fan of poetry, but that's my fault. Mainly, because my brain is not built for poetry. But this was such a beautiful and thought-provoking read. I loved most of the poems in this collection, but some I did not really understand (my fault not the author's). For a poetry collection, I loved it. It was written beautifully, and the stories this collection told: absolutely brilliant. It touched upon the Indigenous identity and the community within First Nations. It was just pure art.

[Anna Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this one, specifically the poem about John A. Macdonald and the "this is not just my land to dance on" poem. However, there was one blasphemous poem that did knock down my rating of this poetry book. (Also, I have to say that there were a few "poems" that followed the pressing-enter-or-having-nice-wordplay-does-not-make-a-poem poem syndrome, but they were done not too badly. Thankfully not the Amanda Lovelace type.)

[kerenza · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favourites: “My Mother’s Arms”, “Wild Berries”, and (forgive my spelling) “A^cimowina”.

[piizunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

marilyn dumont i would die for you

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs of a Really Good Brown Girl, Helen Betty Osborne, Guilt is an Erosion, Letter to Sir John A. Macdonald, Still Unsaved Soul, The Devil's Language, He Taught Me, It Crosses My Mind, We Are Made of Water

necessary reading

[Chris Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here are a few beautiful poems from “A Really Good Brown Girl”.

WILD BERRIES
when I watch you move
it’s as if
my eyes are old hands
uncovering and furtively picking
wild berries
before they fall

it’s as if
I am parched
and you are water
and my eyes drink
till I am quenched
by your smooth taut skin

it’s as if
you are a gift I open
my eyes long fingers
slowly untying a thin ribbon
that slips
beneath crisp paper,
smoothed out
by one long slow glance

NOT JUST A PLATFORM FOR MY DANCE
this land is not
just a place to set my house my car my fence

this land is not
just a plot to bury my dead my seed

this land is
my tongue my eyes my mouth

this headstrong grass and relenting willow
these flat-footed fields and applauding leaves
these frank winds and electric sky lines

are my prayer
they are my medicine
and they become my song

this land is not
just a platform for my dance

OLD FOOL AND A FIVE-YEAR MOON
it was in a five-year moon
that you held my hand
for the first time

I remember

clinging to life
between you and my sister
in a pick-up truck
fixed to the moon
you called it
that five-year moon

you an old man
whose unschooled life
to you made more sense
than my learned life
would ever make me
was it in that moon I changed?

old fool you were then
my mother said
you who could barely write your name
you cradled my shaking hand
my 35-year-old shaking hand
you twice my age
and content not knowing
all that school had taught me
you an old fool
who stepped cautiously
as a two year old now
that you were finally
tenderly
an old fool
to my mother

[Laina SpareTime]

Cross-posted from my blog where there's more information on where I got my copy and links and everything.

Look, more non-fiction. This one I wasn’t as wowed by. Honestly I think it’s me just not being a huge poetry person. I think I prefer poetry that has a little more of a narrative? Like books told in prose. I’m 100% sure a whole lot of people besides me would enjoy this a whole lot more.

Wrong Laina for this book, is all it boils down to. Not rating this one on goodreads or anything as it would not be fair when clearly it’s not a craft issue but just a me not being into it thing.

[Aly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presque à chaque page de ce recueil de poésie, je disais wow! Quelle puissance! Dans les mots. Dans le message. Dans l'émotion que ça transmet. Juste pour le côté cocky (pardonnez mon anglais mais le mot ne sonne juste pas aussi efficace ou exact en français) du poème adressé à John A. Macdonald, ce livre vaut tous les dollars dépensés 🤭. J'ai un petit faible pour le titre de celui intitulé La culpabilité est une érosion. Et toutes les phrases de Qu'est-ce qui plus que la danse sont venues me chercher d'une façon que je ne saurais expliquer.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilyn Dumont is a talented poet, and this is an excellent collection of poems. It alternates between being powerful and gentle, often having something important to say. I enjoyed most of her stylistic choices a lot. My favourite poems in the collection include Squaw PoemsHelen Betty Osborne, Letter to Sir John A. Macdonald, and the Devil's Language.

I definitely recommend this for anyone looking for a good book of poetry to read.

[J]

I read this for one of my students; she's doing an IB Eng Lit A HL IO on it, so I read it to help her with that.

I see where the author is coming from, and I'm glad my student was assigned this book because we need to stop promoting nothing but dead white men in literature when there are so many other perspectives in the world. And our empathy suffers from not encountering these perspectives.

This specific book is just not my cup of tea. (I am fond of other structures of poetry more.)

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first of two books of poetry I'm reading that are written by indigenous people of Canada. This is a marvelous revelation, filled with poems that are passionate, tender and angry by turns, and full of clear, detailed images of life on the north American plains. There are clear groupings of poems, personal (love poems), more political, and those that read like memoir. I found the feel of the grasslands so strongly in Dumont's words, her longing for them, as well as her divisions since she was Metis - of mixed blood. This is a keeper.

[Jasmine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of poetry, so my review could be skewed by my unfamiliarity with the style, but I wasn't really moved or particularly interested in many of these poems. The ones I found most intriguing were the ones that focused on her Cree identity and culture.

[Soyee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am one to be blind to all the nuances of poetic devices. However, after many discussions and seeing from other perspectives have I realized how great Marilyn Dumont was able to intertwine historical elements with poetry.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good collection of poems about Metis identity

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

[Trisha Roberson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems reflecting on Dumonts experience as a Metis woman. Many of her poems were striking and eyeopening

[Aleta Fera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rushed through the poems to meet the 2019 deadline but there were several I went back for nonetheless.

[Donnajo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summer Reading Contest

A little something different. One of the books I got from doing the Summer Reading contest. I haven't read anything by author before was enjoyable.

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of really stand out poems. Definitely one to buy and re-read.

[Anneke Alnatour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful collection of poems by Metis author.

[julia! · Rating 2 out of 5]

3 good poems, rest… eh.

[Alexandre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dur de relate... pas pour moi!

[Dora Prieto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, timeless, full of love. This is canon.

[Sky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poems with vivid imagery. As someone who grew up in Canada’s Prairie region, I particularly enjoyed this.

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Really Good Brown Girl speaks for itself. So many resonating, powerful, howling, crying, smirking lines. She is a marvel of words. Below I've transcribed some of my favourites that brought me to a halt with their nuance, bite, and genius.


"Helen Betty Osborne"

Betty, if I set out to write this poem about you
it might turn out instead
to be about me
or any one of
my female relatives
it might turn out to be
about this young native girl
growing up in rural Alberta
in a town with fewer Indians
than ideas about Indians
in a town just south of the "Aryan Nation"

it might turn out to be
about Anna Mae Aquash, Donald Marshall or Richard Cardinal,
it might even turn out to be
about our grandmothers,
beasts of burden in the fur trade
skinning, scraping, pounding, packing,
left behind for "British Standards of Womanhood,"
left for white-melting-skinned women,
not bits-of-brown women
left here in this wilderness, this colony.

      Betty, if I start to write a poem about you
it might turn out to be
about hunting season instead,
about 'open season' on native women
it might turn out to be
about your face   young and hopeful
staring back at me   hollow now
from a black and white page
it might be about the 'townsfolk'   (gentle word)
townsfolk who 'believed native girls were easy'
and 'less likely to complain if a sexual proposition led to violence.'

      Betty, if I write this poem.




"Spineless"

the welcome image of you
is gone; the unwelcome
image of me is still here
big, loud and bitching
bigger still ar e m y myths,
the ones I threaten your small frightened frame
of mind with
now finally shruken
to life size.

all you've heard are lies.

and hear me
bigger than life
too damn wise and smiling
bitch of the North
colder than Jasper and 101st
in a minus-forty wind
waiting for a bus
nose dripping
short a quarter
and too mute to ask for change.



"Not Just a Platform for my Dance"

this land is not
just a place to set my house my car my fence

this land is not
just a plot to bury my dead my seed

this land is
my tongue   my eyes     my mouth

this headstrong grass and relentless willow
these flat-footed fields and applauding leaves
these frank winds and electric sky

are my prayer
they are my medicine
and they become my song

this land is not
just a platform for my dance



"Still Unsaved Soul"

If I hear one more word
about your Christian God
I'm gonna howl
I'm gonna crawl outta my 'heathen'
skin and trick you
into believing I am the Virgin
Mary and take you bed

If I hear one more line
about your white church
I'm gonna start sitting and dancing
with all my 'false gods'
in a givewawy dance and honour
you with all the 'unclean' sheets from my bed.

If I hear one more blessed thought
or witness one more holy act
I'm gonna throw up
thirty-five years of communion hosts
from this still unsaved soul.



"Circle the Wagons"

There it is again, the circle, that goddamned circle, as if we thought in circles, judged things on the merit of their circularity, as if all we ate was bologna and bannock, drank Tetley tea, so many times 'we are' the circle, the medicine wheel, the moon, the womb, and sacred hoops, you'd think we were one big tribe, is there nothing more than the circle in the deep structure of native literature? Are my eyes circles yet? Yet I feel compelled to incorporate something circular into the text, plot, or narrative structure because if it's linear then that proves that I'm a ghost and that native culture really has vanished and what is all this fuss about appropriation anyway? Are my eyes round yet? There are times when I feel that if I don't have a circle or the number four or legend in my poetry, I am lost, just a fading urban Indian caught in all the trappings of Doc Martens, cappuccinos and foreign films but there it is again orbiting, lunar, hoops encompassing your thoughts and canonizing mine, there it is again, circle the wagons...

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short collection of powerful poems. I admit that I didn't always know if I was missing something in the poems, but that was only a few of them.

There are four main sections to the book: Squaw Poems, What More Than Dance, White Noise, and Made of Water. Within the section Squaw Poems, she has a grouping of six pieces that were raw and powerful. In one piece she didn't want to be seen as loose so, "Instead, I became what Jean Rhys phrased, 'aggressively respectable.' I'd be so god-damned respectable that white people would feel slovenly in my presence." p 18

Several poems were about women, gender roles, sexuality and violence against women. Helen Betty Osborne was another that had so much emotion around sexual violence against native women. In the poem she used the phrase 'open season' on native women.

There were also poems that celebrated love. Wild Berries is one. It's a beauty and not to be missed.

There are poems here that are hard to read because of subject matter and then there are some that are difficult because I may not have the context, but this was a collection that can stir up emotions and is worth the time and effort. I like how it is explained on the back of the book. Beth Cuthland writes, "These are Indian poems, Canadian poems, human poems." Exactly.

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat! Dumont takes you on this incredible journey full of sadness, love, joy and nostalgia of her Metis heritage.
She wittingly inserts observations of white Canada and uses irony and humor to convey her anger and distrust of white people.
I found her poems not only educational; she delves into what it's like to be a Metis woman, but also spiritual. She conveys the different loves that a woman feels with so much accuracy that it's like you're having a conversation with an old friend.
She writes about the love she had for her father that has passed, and about the lovers that have passed her.
While I have not gone through the struggles, discrimination and oppression that she faces as a Metis woman, I found her poetry about her personal journey extremely relatable.
What a beautiful enlightening writer, I'll be reading this again and again and again.