FORT FRANCES – For Jana-Rae Yerxa, poetry means freedom.
“Being an Anishinaabe woman,” she said in a phone interview, “sometimes it's difficult or even not safe to express things.
“Whereas poetry through artistic expression allows me the freedom to say things, to write things, and for it to be more digestible for others.”
The Couchiching First Nation member and Fort Frances resident is one of several poets who will be on stage Saturday evening at the Delta Hotel in Thunder Bay for the Ontario Native Women’s Association’s eighth annual Poetry Night.
Others on the bill include Al Hunter, Sara Kae and Juno-winning recording artist Susan Aglukark.
The event, which will include music, is in honour of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and presented by the Ontario Native Women’s Association. Showtime is 7 p.m. for the Poetry Night on the theme of “strong hands stop violence.”
Yerxa, who in her non-poet life is faculty and curriculum developer in Anishinaabe Gikendaasowin at Seven Generations Education Institute, said her own poetry is “grounded in Indigenous feminism” and often touches on “the tension of living in a contemporary colonial society.”
She said poetry has been a "saving grace" in her life.
"It serves as an outlet for freedom while, at the same time, chronicling the death and rebirth cycles necessary to shed a limiting existence," she said.
"I wake over and over again to the realization that speaking truth and living authentic expressions of love in a world that tries to erase you is powerful and medicine. Poetry allows me to be."
Her writing includes both “poems that are really just meant to be read” and “poetry that is meant to be performed through spoken word,” she said.
For a test audience, she said, “a lot of times I share it with my husband. I share it with my sisters, my family, my husband, my best friend. Those are the folks that it goes through first.”
The Poetry Night’s timing and theme are ‘’really significant to me because I’m an Indigenous woman and, you know, Canada has an issue with missing and murdered Indigenous women. That’s why this is really important to me.”
The event highlights the issue of violence against Indigenous women but “in such a resurgent way that it also celebrates Indigenous women's voices,” she said.
“And I think that's really important because despite the violence, we are still here and still so strong and powerful and brilliant and beautiful.”
Besides this Poetry Night, the Ontario Native Women’s Association’s anti-violence efforts include Ontario’s largest program against human trafficking.
Event information and a link to register can be found at the association’s website.
