Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli

by D.A. Lockhart

Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli is a contemporary myth told in lyric form. The poems in this collection follow Raymond Northwind, a past-middle-aged Odawa guy, who happens to be the icemaker and custodian for the Peter Glint Memorial Curling Club. Fate finds Northwind in his Gimli, Manitoba exile and because of it, he brings forth a semi-supernatural curling team of Cree “bearmen” to face off against the best teams from around Canada for a large and prestigious prize. Below the surface of these poems there are meditations on the role of ceremony, the place of sport in culture, the spirit of the land, and those that come to inhabit it. This work inhabits the intersection of cultures in Canada as facilitated by what is often seen as a quintessentially Canadian sport, curling, in a place that is the geographic midpoint of Canada.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

D.A. Lockhart is the author of nine books, including North of Middle Island (Kegedonce Press, 2023) Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli (Frontenac House, 2021) and Breaking Right: Stories (Porcupine's Quill, 2021). His work has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2019, TriQuarterly, ARC Poetry Magazine, Grain, Belt, and the Malahat Review among many. His work has garnered multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, Best of the Net nominations, and National Magazine Prize Nominations. His books have been shortlisted for the ReLit Award, Indiana Authors Awards, First Nations Communities READ Awards, and the Raymond Souster Award.

Lockhart is a Turtle Clan member of Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Lenape), a registered treatied member of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and currently resides at the south shore of Waawiiyaatanong (Windsor,ON-Detroit, MI) and Pelee Island. His work has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. He is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press.

Reviews

[Kathryn Mockler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a blur for this book:


In D.A. Lockhart’s stunning novel-in-verse, Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli, readers become spectators of an epic curling bonspiel where the prize is not just a trophy but a reclamation and a reckoning: “Treaty I land is leased land / and the landlords have returned / to move stone, carve their ways / again into ice and stories to come.” In this brilliantly-crafted narrative, there’s comedy alongside the starkly serious from an homage to Dudley George to dreams of wildlife in Murder She Wrote to Jesus getting kicked out of Swiss Chalet. With biting humour and arresting images, Lockhart creates an unforgettable world of dreams, visions, songs, and pop culture—and eviscerates colonialism in the process.