Sublime poetry by Nbisiing youth in Once the Smudge is Lit

By Kelly Anne Smith

NIPISSING FIRST NATION— Two creative youths have written the book of poems Once the Smudge is Lit, revealing intimate portraits of life in Nipissing First Nation. The book by Kelsey Borgford and Cole Forrest is illustrated by Tessa Pizzale, a Moose Cree First Nation artist.

Of the Marten clan, Kelsey explains how the book came together saying that she and Cole have been long-term creative partners.

“We actually became friends through poetry, so our story has come full circle. We met through a downtown art gallery where we hosted poetry slams with another friend of ours, and I was very inspired by Cole’s work and accomplishments. My story with Tessa is very similar; however, we met in middle school. We have been creative soulmates since then. She brings an additional spark to my work that would otherwise be missing. I asked Tessa to do the illustrations on this book as we had just worked together on my children’s book about her, What’s in A Bead?, and I could not picture anyone else doing the work besides her!”

The book begins with Kelsey Borgford’s poems in which her love for her Gokomis-baa tugs at the reader’s heart strings.

“My determination to continue Anishnaabe traditions is certainly attributed to my Nokomis-baa, Doreen Couchie (nee) Miller. Her passing to the Spirit World pushed me to connect with her in other ways, such as practising our culture.”

Kelsey talks about the poem, Pretendian, in which a human “…take(s) all that bear had.”

“Pretendian is a poem inspired by the issue of settler’s taking on Indigenous identity to hoard what little resources Indigenous people have. The poem speaks to the concept that no matter how hard they work to play pretend, they will always lack that connection with the community. As Indigenous people, our community holds us up and claims us, and pretendian claims can be very easily disproven by searching for that community connection.”

“A song of survival sings throughout me” is a line in Creator’s Daughter, a poem that Borgford explains is about accepting “my body the way it was made.”

“It is about being grateful and taking care of it regardless of how I feel about my appearance. Reframing my words about my body has reframed my perspective and allowed me to be thankful for the fact that I have been given the gift of being here. My family and community have been through tremendous difficulties for me to exist, and I acknowledge that through my work.”

In Cole Forrest’s poems, they feel brave sharing what they do in the book through poetry.

“Poetry is, a lot of the time, the most raw and honest art form. It really comes from the heart and I think as there becomes more and more Indigenous poets and writers, especially of Kelsey’s and my generation—Gen Z—and future generations of Indigenous artists, I think we will begin to see more and more bravery shared, whether they be on-screen or paintings or what have you, but definitely through poetry,” Forrest explains. “I want young Indigenous people to read this book, to understand they are really not alone in their experiences, whether they live in their communities or off their communities. Or their reflecting on experiences that happened when they were younger. You are not alone in those. We can be brave together as a reader and a writer.”

Forrest was happy to talk about their mother featured in their poems because, “I love to talk about my mom.”

“We’ve had a lot of tough and important and impactful experiences together in our lives. My mom had me when she was a teenager. I really, honestly grew up with my mom. My mom’s only 43. I try to call her as much as I can. It’s great to talk about because I’m actually beginning to write my first solo collection and there is a lot of writing about my mother. I’ve been thinking a lot about that. It was important to me to honour her in this poetry. My family is incredibly important to me. Even though, at the same time, there are a lot of truths and harsh truths in the book. Within that poetry, I really just want the best. I want things to be better. There’s a line in one of the poems that’s, ‘I’d carry all of you if it meant we could have a family and not just relations (Boat Ride).’ That is a huge thing to me because my biggest connection to my family and my identity or just as a person is my mother. I take a lot from my mother. I’m just really grateful for her. I wanted her to read the whole thing before it was published because I wanted her stamp of approval. That’s what mattered most.”

Forrest says that writing has always been their first love and they are working on a couple of big projects.

“It’s been something that has always gotten me through everything in my life since I started writing when I was 12. Indigenous writing and Indigenous literacy are the biggest important causes to me because writing is so crucial to my life. I’m really just trying to enjoy this book coming out this year, but also writing and pitching other things,” shares Forrest. “The two other things are my feature film, which is called Fish. It’s a genre horror Indigenous film centred around an Indigenous woman and their non-binary Indigenous partner who go up to a community for a weekend for the pow wow. And what they don’t realize is that they are being prepared as sacrifices to the serpent cult that runs the community. It’s based after a feature short that I made in my community a few years ago. It’s based off of a story in my community called The Serpent People story, which is a scary story. Along with that, this newest poetry collection.”

Forrest points to Borgford for now being a published author with Once the Smudge is Lit.

“Honestly, it’s because of Kelsey. Kelsey really approached me to do this. We have always wanted to do something together and Kelsey had approached me about doing a poetry collection together, which was the perfect thing for us. She inspires me incredibly so much everyday. So, for her to want to do this with me has really inspired me to pursue more poetry and to create my own collection, because through this, I feel confidence in being able to do.”

Forrest encourages those interested to buy this book from Kegedonce Press, an Indigenous-led publishing house.

“I would encourage people to buy it to support Indigenous literature genre books that they like to read. There is probably an Indigenous author that has written in that genre or style. I would encourage them to take a look at Indigenous writers that have done that and support them to.”