Gabriel's beach

Summary: In Gabriel's Beach, Cree poet Neal McLeod shows us a dark and sometimes raging world beset with human cruelty and struggle, made beautiful by the dreams and magic of the spirit beings inhabiting this land, by the stories of his ancestors, by the knowledge of the birds and animals, and by the cultural teachings and ceremonies of his people. These are the ground upon which he builds his poems and shows us lost, suffering, and frail humans the way to survive. Gabriel's Beach is a place where words have power. McLeod's poems are a river of song, running through us, carrying us safely home. Culturally and linguistically grounded in Saskatchewan Cree and Métis experiences, the poems in Gabriel's Beach transcend collective and individual history. Based on specific events, they bring alive the universal issues of loss, conflict, healing and love. While they address the trauma of war, dispossession, removal, and ethnocide, they simultaneously celebrate the resilience, stamina, and humanity of those who survived; they treat with painful honesty the struggles of individuals and communities who are still suffering the legacies of colonialism. These poems unearth the political in the personal. McLeod "writes back" to the "empire" as much as he "writes home" to the Métis and the Cree.