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owlmouth is a collection of poems about transformation. Michele Marie Desmarais (Métis, Dakota, European) offers perspectives on the environment, being-in-relationship, the need for change and the process of healing. These poems are an expression of an Indigenous worldview replete with relationships between human and other-than-human persons.
owlmouth is about the possibilities of transformation within a life—in the face of colonialism and the sometime liminal identities on the urban rez. Reflecting on experiences of historical trauma due to the Indian Residential/Boarding Schools, as well as climate change and the responsibilities we have for our relatives who include both human and other-than-human persons, owlmouth is also about intergenerational resiliency, healing and the necessities of transforming the dominant culture.
Depending on the Nation or culture, an owl may bring medicine, wisdom, or death. These poems explore all three within the overall theme of transformation, and, in doing so, reflect upon belonging, home, Indigenous/Native American perspectives, and the intersection of multiple moments, beings and cultures.
About the author
Michele Marie Desmarais is a poet and scholar of Métis, Dakota and European descent. She is an Associate Professor in Religious Studies and a teaching faculty member in Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she was founding director of the Medical Humanities program. Desmarais' poetry has appeared widely in literary journals and she is also the author of Changing Minds: Mind, Consciousness and Identity in Patañjali's Yoga-s¿tra and Cognitive Neuroscience. She performs and records with her band owlmouth.
