Calling Down the Sky

"This poetry collection is fierce, raw and candid. By recounting her mother’s residential school experience in a powerfully poetic narrative, Deerchild expertly illustrates the heartbreaking trauma of that tragic saga and how it complicates relationships over generations." – Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Crusted Snow

A tenth anniversary bilingual edition in English and Cree of Rosanna Deerchild’s stunning collection about the intergenerational impacts of the Canadian residential school system.

you want me to
share my story

ok then
here it is
here in the unwritten
here in the broken lines
of my body that can never forget

î-nitawîthimiyan
kita-âcimostâtân nitâcimisowin

hâw mâka
mâkôma
ôta îkâ kâ-kî-masinahikâtîk
ôta kâ-pîkopathiki masinahikîwina
nimiyaw îkâ wîhkâc kâ-wanikiskisit

In Calling Down the Sky, poet Rosanna Deerchild viscerally evokes her mother’s experience within the residential school system, the Canadian government’s system of violently removing Indigenous children from their homes, families, and languages in an explicit attempt to destroy Indigenous cultures and identities. With precise and intricate poetry, Deerchild weaves together the story of her mother’s childhood and Deerchild’s memories of her mother: her love of country music, her attempts to talk about what happened to her, how tightly she braided her daughter’s hair on the first day of school. In doing so, Deerchild illustrates the disruptive and devastating impacts of the residential school system on generations of families while also celebrating the life and culture of her mother and other survivors. 

Published for the first time in a bilingual edition of Cree and English, in time for the tenth anniversary of the original publication, Calling Down the Sky is an intimate and gorgeously evoked reckoning with a horrifying part of North American history. 

Rosanna Deerchild (She/Her) is Cree, from the community of O-Pipon-Na-Piwan Cree Nation. She has been a storyteller for more than twenty years; as a journalist, broadcaster, poet, and playwright. She is the host of CBC Radio One’s Unreserved. Her debut poetry collection this is a small northern town shared her reflections of growing up in a racially divided place. It won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Her second book, calling down the sky, is a collaboration with her mother who was forced to attend Indian Residential School. Her first play with the Royal MTC’s Pimootayowin Creators Circle was called The Secret to Good Tea and was produced for their mainstage in their 2022/23 season. It will be produced for the 2025/26 season with the National Arts Centre and the Grand Theatre in London Ontario. 

Solomon Ratt was born to parents who were trappers and fishers. He learned nîhithawin (Woods Cree) at their knees. At the age of six Solomon was abducted from his home and taken to the residential school where he began his schooling. After the residential school he attended Riverside Collegiate High School. He attended the University of Regina earning two BAs and an MA. His significant work teaching Cree has been recognized with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit (2021), the Queen’s Platinum Medal (2022), and he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada (2024).

He began teaching Cree language and storytelling at First Nations University in 1984, retiring in 2022. Solomon’s publications include nîhithaw âcimowina – Woods Cree Stories (2014), mâci-nêhiyawêwin – Beginning Cree (2016), and âhkami-nêhiyawêtân – Let’s Keep Speaking Cree (2022), both published by the University of Regina Press. Another book published by the University of Regina Press, kâ-pî-isi-kiskisiyân / ᑳᐲᐃᓯᑭᐢᑭᓯᔮᐣ / The Way I Remember, won two Saskatchewan Book Awards in 2024.