One of the sustaining ways cultures meet themselves, and members of a society recognize themselves within that society, is in the reflecting pool of the arts.
This is why, in times of war and violent insurrection, writers are often the first target of oppressors. Words can change the course of history, including, said Janet Rogers, in healing and restorative fashion.
Rogers is a Mohawk descended from the Six Nations of Ontario. She is a B.C. resident from birth and since 1994 has lived on the territory of the Coast Salish people. There, as an active writer, she pens her reflective words as both aboriginal storyteller and mainstream poet laureate of the City of Victoria.
Rogers was in Prince George this past week as one of the featured guests at the Ut'loo Noye Khunni-Weaving Words Celebration. It was the 9th annual edition of the aboriginal writers' event, and this year's guests included Rogers, Garry Gottfriedson, Richard Van Camp and Marie Clements. Locally-based poets, storytellers and musicians included Brianna Ireland, Jeremy Pahl, Candice George, Jean Baptiste, and many others.
"If you know who you are culturally and spiritually, you can approach these troubled times and be on okay ground yourself, and not feed negative energy into that chaos," said Rogers, who unveiled a new book of poetry called Peace In Duress published by Talonbooks.
"Everyone has brought their A-game. It is such an honour to be with this group of people," Rogers said of her fellow headliners. "It is inspiring more and more voices to join and be in the fold of aboriginal writers. Our purpose is to help and inspire others to find their voice."
Rogers has had particular success at that, as a spoken word performer, prose writer and poet. She is also the host of Native Waves Radio on CFUV, the campus station for the University of Victoria. She is also the voice of Tribal Clefs, the audio column on aboriginal music heard regularly on CBC Radio One's All Points West program. She said all of this, including the silent script she writes, is part of the most fundamental form of communication in the aboriginal world - as it was with civilizations elsewhere in the form of storytellers like Homer in Greece, Cicero in Rome, Turlough O'Carolan in Ireland who added music to the craft of orator.
"As a spoken word poet, I do realize that while practicing that I am perpetuating that rich oral history tradition of First Nations peoples, and modernizing it to reach different audiences," she said.
Rogers is the maker of the celebrated video poem What Did You Do Boy, and the award-winning documentary Bring Your Drum (50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music). Using the written word, film and broadcast recordings only frames the oral traditions with new powers of preservation for future generations, she said.
For the next year's examination of aboriginal literature, in all its forms, book off Sept 30 to Oct 3, 2015 when UNBC will host the 10th annual Ut'loo Noye Khunni festival. The theme next year will be Story Medicine.
