Dawaa

Dawaa: The Space Between celebrates in poetry the tensions and beauty between the two ancestral languages of the author: Ojibwe and English.x000Dx000D_As a First Nations woman, Tareyn Johnson grew up without knowing the language of her ancestors. Her grandparents attended residential school, and neither they, nor her mother carried the language. Left with a deep longing desire to embrace Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe) language, she began her learning journey as an adult._x000Dx000D_As the lists of words grew, they began to form visually in the author's mind. As a result, 26 poems-two for each of the Thirteen Moons-grouped seasonally, beautifully juxtapose Ojibwe and English to express Johnson's feeling of existing as an Anishnaabekwe in the modern world._x000D_x000D_Dawaa is not intended as a didactic tool, or as a language teaching tool. This book of poetry examines the unique experience of walking into worlds, speaking and learning two languages, and relating the two ways of knowing in a liminal space... the space between._x000D_nanda-gikendan-seek to know it, seek to learn it.