Following her critically acclaimed first collection of poetry, What Fox Knew, poet Mary Barnes’ sophomore collection, Moving Upstream reveals a tempered grace. Barnes brings her Ojibwe roots to the fore and elegantly coaxes out the seemingly quiet world we often take for granted. In this masterful new collection, we are transported to place and time, to the heart and soul of the poet’s love for the natural world.
A Best Poetry Book Selection 2023.
– CBC Books
“Moving Upstream personifies how Ojibwe ways of knowing continue to persevere, nurturing the individual identities of each generation alongside colonial infrastructures now sharing the water.”
– Scott Mainprize
“Mary Barnes’ second poetry collection, Moving Upstream, masterfully blends the profound questions of our existence with hard facts of the realities and mandates of our quantified world. Her poetic language, deeply rooted in her Ojibwe ancestry, is a thought-provoking and vast treasury that reveals symbol-and-meaning working together to a lasting and powerful effect.”
– Bianca Lakoseljac, author of Stone Woman, a novel; editor of Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works, slated for release, Nov. 2023
This book was made with the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
