Paul Hapenny

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<I>Paul Hapenny</I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>KESPUKWITK:</B></div> <div> <B>LAND'S END POEMS</B></div> <div> <B>Paul Hapenny</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="0602cc70.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="455" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Re-Matriation </B></div> <div> <B>Chapbook Series of Indigenous Poetry</B></div> <div> #1</div> <div> Susan Deer Cloud, Editor</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>From the Introduction:</B></div> <bR> <div> <I>Kespukwitk: Land's End Poems</I> is certainly an apt title for a book powerfully reflective of current Indian reality (if not surreality) following upon five centuries of physical and cultural genocide against Native peoples.  Hapenny's poems echo our musical and metaphorical indigenous languages, what Mohawk Chief Tom Porter calls “language in 3-D.”  The poems resonate with myriad aspects of existence Indian-style, embodying the clash between our old manner of living and current confused dealings with the frenetic, loud, capitalist, urban life.  How many of us have found ourselves at land's end, forced to the brink of oceanic desolation and riptides of suicidal thoughts?  We Turtle Island people have the highest suicide rate in this country re-named the United States; on the reservations chain suicides increasingly occur among young people.  <I>Kespukwitk</I> addresses that despair.</div> <div> Paul Hapenny's poems burn fiercely indigenous in that they are earth-rooted, especially in Nova Scotia where part of his family comes from.  In a contemporary world filled with more and more urban Indians, this poet writes about land and sea, hunting, fishing, and trapping.  He knows that world well, conveys it with no sentimentality, yet simultaneously expresses a profound love for the bloody, perilous beauty of the untamed places.  Juxtaposed against that world is the new world of cities, prostitutes, alcohol, depression, mania, “fast food” sex, and, yes, even love, but love marred by centuries of violence and given over to fear and distrust.  The chapbook serves as a testament to this Métis writer's brilliance, that way he bears witness to the harshness of many Native people's lives yet even so makes the reader <I>feel </I>with him an enduring love for indigenous outcasts and the land's end they struggle to regain their balance on.</div> <div> And so I invite any reader to enter into <I>Kespukwitk: Land's End Poems</I>, to follow its trail of fiery truth-telling and brave refusal to bow to easy stereotypes and betrayals of us.  If you think that we have no Indian warriors left, think again.  Paul Hapenny stands as a word warrior and latter day brave whose proud tough brilliance exists as a shield for his people.  Nia:wen, Paul.  Your words keep us from vanishing and bring our stolen hearts home.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>                                                         Susan Deer Cloud, 9.14.10 </div> <bR> <div> <B>From the book:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>SNOWDRIFT</B></div> <bR> <div> I'm 55.</div> <div> It's 2:17</div> <div> a winter morning.</div> <div> Rum bottle's 2/3 shot</div> <div> drifting snow's</div> <div> 3 inches deep</div> <div> on the windowsill</div> <div> Maybe 3 ½</div> <bR> <div> Drifting </div> <bR> <div> Blowing and drifting snow</div> <bR> <div> Drifting </div> <bR> <div> Snow around my knees</div> <div> Clotting on my eyelashes</div> <div> I'm in the teeth of it</div> <div> Running my rabbit line </div> <div> northeast from Five River Lake</div> <div> through the hardhack and scrub alder barrens</div> <div> to Lake Harper</div> <bR> <div> Got two rabbits in my poke</div> <div> bobcat took a third</div> <div> Got a wife at home</div> <div> baby at her nipple</div> <div> Got soaked mittens </div> <div> holding my Browning 20 gauge</div> <div> Got few prospects</div> <div> and less stamina</div> <bR> <div> Drifting</div> <bR> <div> There's a red spruce</div> <div> bark chewed by a porcupine</div> <div> maybe he's denned up in </div> <div> that moraine jumble</div> <div> maybe there's shelter</div> <div> maybe I'll…</div> <div> maybe</div> <bR> <div> Frozen hands hack </div> <div> at a hatmatack branch</div> <div> I need a club</div> <div> I'm around the moraine</div> <div> Shivering, looking for a seam</div> <div> a hole, salvation</div> <bR> <div> A crawl space </div> <div> porcupine shit</div> <div> I shove the club </div> <div> in ahead of me</div> <div> Teeth chatter</div> <div> his, mine</div> <div> He rolls toward me</div> <div> quill barbs out</div> <div> the nor'east wind rips</div> <div> through my jeans</div> <div> needles of ice rend my legs</div> <bR> <div> Him or me</div> <bR> <div> I jab him with the club</div> <div> spin him around</div> <div> slam the club between his eyes</div> <bR> <div> once</div> <bR> <div> twice</div> <bR> <div> he rolls on his side </div> <div> twitches </div> <div> and dies.</div> <bR> <div> I crawl in </div> <div> through the porcupine shit</div> <div> use the club</div> <div> to roll him on his back</div> <div> I slice open his quill less belly</div> <div> and shove my ice burned hands </div> <div> into his steaming guts</div> <bR> <div> The wind screams  </div> <div> my name </div> <div> My hands scream</div> <div> in pain</div> <div> Porcupine's </div> <div> dead quiet</div> <div> And my teeth</div> <div> chatter</div> <bR> <div> Blowing drifting snow</div> <bR> <div> Drifting.</div> <bR> <div> Morning light </div> <div> shakes me </div> <div> through closed eyes</div> <bR> <div> Hands unchilled </div> <div> dripping</div> <div> thick warm blood</div> <bR> <div> I push out</div> <div> beautiful</div> <div> peaceful</div> <div> life floods back</div> <bR> <div> I skin out the porcupine for boiling</div> <div> and head out south southeast for home</div> <div> Shoot two partridges with the Browning</div> <div> All in all a good hunt</div> <div> All in all…in all…I won</div> <bR> <div> Home, I sit by the wood stove</div> <div> watching the wife work up a stew   </div> <div> baby's crawling on the floor</div> <div> I'm having ginger tea with a shot</div> <div> Dried birch snaps in the firebox</div> <div> And I'm drifting</div> <bR> <div> I'm 55</div> <div> It's 5:24 </div> <div> a winter's morning</div> <div> Rum bottle's just a smell  </div> <div> drifting snow's</div> <div> 6 inches deep</div> <div> on the windowsill</div> <div> maybe 6 1/2</div> <bR> <div> Drifting</div> <bR> <div> Wife took off to Ontario</div> <div> Kid knocked around</div> <div> Came back east </div> <div> and had one of his own</div> <div> Baby Brother stole the Browning</div> <div> on his one way trip </div> <div> down the cocaine highway</div> <bR> <div> And I'm a used up halfbreed</div> <div> sitting in a city</div> <div> no woods around</div> <div> just drifting</div> <div> blowing snow</div> <bR> <div> Drifting</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Paul Hapenny is the writer of seven plays. The multi award winning "Vig," "Sacrament" and "Vignettes From a Masculine Tableau" have been produced both in the US and internationally. The author of 12 screenplays, including "Vig" and "DownCity," Paul has written for Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers Pictures and LionsGate Films among others. Of both First Nations and White Ancestry, he is a proud member of the "SouWest Nova Metis Council."</div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="0692c5e0.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="350" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>KESPUKWITK: LAND'S END POEMS</B><FONT SIZE="6" COLOR="#111111" FACE="Constantia" > </FONT></div> <div> is a 40 page hand-stitched chapbook - $10.00</div> <bR> <div> TO ORDER  ON-LINE  <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Garamond" >                             </FONT></div> <div>       </div> <bR> <div> From the US         <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/sc-but-01.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="KESPUKWITK"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="11-03"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> </form>  </div> <bR> <div> From Canada    <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/sc-but-01.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="KESPUKWITK"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="11-03"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00"> <input type="hidden" name="shipping" value="2.75"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> </form>  </div> <bR> <div> From Other Countries            <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/sc-but-01.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="KESPUKWITK"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="11-03"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> <input type="hidden" name="shipping" value="5.00"> </form>  </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id11.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ordering By Mail"><U>To order through mail click here</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>