Stó:lõ storyteller and writer Lee Maracle began her hour-long talk hosted by the Social Justice Institute and the Indigenous Pedagogies Research Network with a story about her grandfather:
In 1967, she combined music with spoken word in an unprecedented way. At the Canadian centennial that year, he used this combination to share a subversive political message condemning the European appropriation of Native land.
The relationship between music, song and stories is important to Maracle’s work, as is the influence of her family and her community. She returned to both of these influences again and again during the lecture as well as in her 2014 novel, Celia’s Song.
“Song begins everything. Everything begins with song,” she said after letting a deep sonorous note ring out. “I’m not a singer but I do know the key note.”
Maracle read from Celia’s Song and also presented a small selection of her poetry at the Liu Institute for Global Issues last Thursday. The atmosphere was relaxed and the audience was genuinely interested. Maracle spoke from a place of openness and honesty that was easy to connect to. Her hoarse, infectious laughter and conversational tone kept the audience engaged throughout.
Celia’s Song builds on the stories of several characters – notably Celia. Celia is a character who previously appeared in her 1993 novel Ravensong. It is the story about the two-headed sea serpent that is bipolar disorder, about natural disasters and how they impact communities and the intergenerational struggle of one Nuu’Chahlnuth family in the face of colonial oppression.
“There is something helpless in being a witness,” the book opens. The necessary act of witnessing despite feeling powerless and the role stories play in that witnessing are themes Maracle alluded to in the rest of her talk as well. An interesting aspect of this appeared in the instances in which she referred to how her stories connect to her political beliefs and activities. The violence against Indigenous women, the misguided perspectives of the one per cent and the immensity of global climate change are no small topics to take on.
Maracle does so because it is necessary to witness and speak about even those issues that seem too overwhelming to ever change.
Why does she write? Because she cannot stop.
She briefly outlined her writing process — while her approach to poetry is a deliberate one, she doesn’t always know what’s going to happen when it comes to prose stories.
Maracle was not always sure she would become a writer. She shared how scary the idea was to her as she was starting out. “What if I don’t want to be a writer?” She had asked herself then. “What if I’m good at it?”
Today there is no question — she is good at it. And writes constantly.
“I have a computer with no letters on the keyboard, that’s how much I write,” she said during the talk. Witnessing Lee Maracle read her writing, tell her stories and share some of her life experiences was an extraordinary and thought-provoking privilege.
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