We remember tomorrow and a thousand years ago. From eel weirs to the buffalo. We remember petroglyphs and Instagram photos. See, we remember our history, Without statues, money, or pictures of the Queen. In Mi'kmaw, three similarly shaped words have drastically different meanings: kesalul means "I love you"; kesa'lul means "I hurt you"; and ke'sa'lul means "I put you into the fire." In spoken-word artist and critically acclaimed author (I'm Finding My Talk) Rebecca Thomas's first poetry collection, readers will feel Thomas's deep love, pain, and frustration as she holds us all to task, along the way mourning the loss of her childhood magic, exploring the realities of growing up off reserve, and offering up a new Creation Story for Canada. Diverse and probing, I place you into the fire is at once a meditation on navigating life and love as a second-generation Residential School survivor, a lesson in unlearning, and a rallying cry for Indigenous justice, empathy, and equality. A searing collection that embodies the vitality and ferocity of spoken-word poetry.
Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich Livres






I'm Finding My Talk
- 32pages
- 2 heures de lecture
A response to Rita Joe’s iconic poem “I Lost My Talk,” and published simultaneously with the new children’s book edition illustrated by Pauline Young, comes a companion picture book by award-winning spoken-word artist and Mi’kmaw activist Rebecca Thomas. A second-generation residential school survivor, Thomas writes this response poem openly and honestly, reflecting on the process of working through the destructive effects of colonialism.From sewing regalia to dancing at powow to learning traditional language, I’m Finding My Talk is about rediscovering her community, and finding culture. Features stunning, vibrant illustrations by Mi’kmaw artist Pauline Young.
Not Your Penance
- 180pages
- 7 heures de lecture
One quiet October morning, in a suburban neighbourhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, after awakening from a recurring nightmare, 41-year-old stay-at-home mom and social media aficionado Enid Kimble receives two messages, one a disquieting phone call about her mother, and the other a newspaper clipping in a plain envelope in her mailbox, that start to unravel her carefully woven-together world. These two startling messages force Enid to grapple with her past and future in new ways. In a story that weaves together crime, legal drama, romance, adolescence, and motherhood, Enid Kimble struggles to come to terms with her past and makes life-altering decisions about her future. This tense, layered novel debut by lawyer and legal scholar Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich, with the gifted and troubled character of Enid at its centre, spins an intriguing story about motherhood, love, law, coming to terms with the complexities of our pasts, and claiming our futures. In doing so, the author offers invigorating and original engagements with law, mythology, feminism, and motherhood that will resonate with legal professionals, academics, and the general public alike. Poignant and funny, the story weaves together scrupulously accurate legal narrative and compelling personal drama.
Swift Fox All Along
- 36pages
- 2 heures de lecture
What does it mean to be Mi’kmaq? And if Swift Fox can’t find the answer, will she ever feel like part of her family? When Swift Fox’s father picks her up to go visit her aunties, uncles, and cousins, her belly is already full of butterflies. And when he tells her that today is the day that she’ll learn how to be Mi’kmaq, the butterflies grow even bigger. Though her father reassures her that Mi’kmaq is who she is from her eyes to her toes, Swift Fox doesn’t understand what that means. Her family welcomes her with smiles and hugs, but when it’s time to smudge and everyone else knows how, Swift Fox feels even more like she doesn’t belong. Then she meets her cousin Sully and realizes that she’s not the only one who’s unsure—and she may even be the one to teach him something about what being Mi’kmaq means. Based on the author’s own experience, with striking illustrations by Maya McKibbin, Swift Fox All Along is a poignant story about identity and belonging that is at once personal and universally resonant.
Ruin
- 90pages
- 4 heures de lecture
How can Enid move forward when her marriage, as well as the world she has known, simultaneously fall apart? In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, Enid Alger Kimble, protagonist of Bromwich's first novel, Not Your Penance, seeks to reconcile with her past, and finds, through ruin, rebirth. Having returned to Canada and to work as a lawyer, Enid leaves her surgeon husband, Dr. Arthur Kimble. Trying to find healing and a purpose beyond the roles of wife and mother about which she has felt so ambivalent, Enid travels physically and metaphorically through the ruins of her marriage, the ruins of Classical Greece in the Aegean, and finally the remnants of her own prairie childhood. Enid undertakes a long overdue homecoming to accept the Blackfoot Nation's offer of COVID 19 vaccinations, as she journeys into single parenting her five children. As far flung and diverse as the first novel in the series is claustrophobic and tense, Ruin offers fresh perspectives on law, midlife, mothering, and divorce. It is a windswept, hope-filled story of reconciliation and redemption through the COVID 19 pandemic, midlife, law, and divorce.
From her nose to her toes, Our little Princess grows. But as she gets bigger, Her mum needs to help her figure. That bottoms should be hidden By some pretty pants, maybe with a ribbon. But our princess is happy, Young, carefree and a little sassy. We won't be too hard, And we love her spirit for disregard. So celebrate her carefree ways, And let's embrace our little princess days.