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Gently disarming poems that explore healing despite the limitations of living in a colonial society.
Set in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Vancouver, Lasänmą's debut poetry collection takes the reader from her childhood into adulthood by sharing both warm and harrowing memories as they shaped her. The poems follow a young woman discovering the healing of being alone and of finding identity through culture as well as in isolation. Using English, Southern Tutchone, and Dene, the fragile but courageous speaker yearns for the comforts of childhood, yet at the same time looks squarely both at the difficulties of the past and the possibilities of the future. Unashamed, she bares it all.
"Lasänmą is a first-rate poet who deserves to be heard. Her images bring alive trembling trees, a leaf shaped like a feather, pine needles that bring medicines to the heart. Her work is uplifting and wrings the heart but always finds home in her ancestral memories. I was struck with the power of these poems."—Louise B. Halfe - Sky Dancer, author of Burning in This Midnight Dream and awâsis - kinky & dishevelled
"In this complex and curious debut, Lasänmą considers a simple truth: that we are shaped by the places we call home."—The Literary Review of Canada
"Spruce to Cedar is a book I wish I’d had when I was away, and a book that I’d suggest should be recommended reading for faculty and staff at postsecondary schools where Northern and Indigenous students find themselves challenged to adapt."—Dawn Macdonald, The Seaboard Review
"...the reader is immersed in rich landscapes and with poems that evoke the loneliness of displacement, the search for home and happiness, as well as a powerful sense of oral tradition: stories and memories told and retold with listeners in mind."—Joanna Streetly, The British Columbia Review
"Set in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Vancouver, the poem is a testament to the work required to survive the dislocations that result from generational trauma."—melanie brannagan frederiksen, Winnipeg Free Press
Lasänmą (she/her) was raised in Haines Junction, Yukon and is a member of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nation. Her English name is Mariah MacDonald, and she is a part of the Wolf Clan. Mariah lived in Haines Junction and Whitehorse before moving to Vancouver at the age of twenty-one, where she studied at the University of British Columbia (located on the unceded Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations). Spruce to Cedar is Lasänmą’s first published work as an author.