Translated from French by Howard Scott

In this, her third volume of poetry, this Aboriginal writer from Quebec again confronts the loss of her landscape and language.

On my left hip
a face

I walk
I walk upright
like a shadow

a people on my hip
a boatload of fruit
and the dream inside
women and children first

“A cry rises in me and transfigures me. The world waits for woman to come back as she was born: woman standing, woman powerful, woman resurgent. A call rises in me and I’ve decided to say yes to my birth.”

“Fontaine’s poetry is sparse and intuitive, flowing freely through crystal-clear images.”
–Wasafiri

Praise for Assi Manifesto

“Fontaine’s profound, complex poetics combined with her cultural perspective make Assi Manifesto a timely and timeless collection.”
–World Literature Today

“This collection says important things in this era of truth and reconciliation, but it also says them in conceptually interesting ways, with dexterous poetic moves.”
–Canadian Literature

“The poems are a call to the historical pre-invasion calm of North America, for respect as equals against the default culture that partitions her people into the past. The battles in the poems are mythical, symbolic, and large in this manifesto for national and personal pride.”
—The Montreal Review of Books

“[The author] already has an important place amongst those who designate this world the borders of the intimate and the giant.”
—La Presse