Foreward
by Rosanna Deerchild

Bone Memory might be easily defined as a collection of personal
histories, a sum of experiences, sensations, and thoughts stored in the
mind. This compilation by the Aboriginal Writers Collective of Manitoba,
Inc. might easily be defined as just that — a creative collection of our lives.

But that's just too easy.

This is the second chapbook by the AWCM. The first, urban kool, was
published in May 2007 and explored contemporary urban reality
through poems, prose, and musings.

This collection goes beyond the urban borders.

Bone Memory is that indefinable yet unbreakable filament that runs
through all of us. It is, as Angela Tourond-Hrechanyk writes in Bloodties:
which opens and closes the collection, all within my veins.

The sentiment is echoed in Katherena Vermette's poem transparent:
slippery lines/of paternity...they are/vines veins/strings

But Bone Memory can be much more than the holding of history in our
bones.

It can be in a lover as Duncan Mercredi writes in i find my vision. skin/
washed in rain/smooth/colour of fall, dusky brown/with a hint of burnt
wood.

Or in a goodbye to painful memories found in Bus Ride by David MclLeod:
She told me she wouldn't pray/She would touch the casket like a black
piano key as it was lowered.