On February 14, 2024, settler scholar Dre. Marie-Eve Bradette met with Cree-Métis poet and scholar Dr. Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber regarding his latest collection of poetry, acâhkos nikamowini-pîkiskwêwina/The Star Poems: A Cree Sky Narrative, published in September 2023 by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing. The conversation took place across Treaty 4 and 6 Territory, the original lands of the Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Lakota, Nakoda, and homeland of the Métis Nation, and Québec city situated on the Nionwentsïo, the traditional land of the Wendat nation. The conversation was recorded via Zoom, and with the help of settler Ph.D. student Sophie Larue it was transcribed and edited. While we wished to keep with the orality of the conversation, we decided to edit the text to suppress some repetitions of words and hesitations to facilitate the reading process.

Marie-Eve Bradette : To open our discussion, I did prepare some questions, but they are open to frame it more as a conversation then a classic interview. I didn’t want it to look like a grocery list, you know. I wish to talk about the process of writing this particular book, The Star Poem. A Cree Sky Narrative… The process of writing it in both English and Cree, to talk about what does it mean to write across languages? So, just to begin with, and correct me if I am wrong, I think this was your first creative work to be published? You have published scholarly books before, but I believe this is your first tap into creative writing?

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, it’s the first poetry book I’ve published. I’ve published short stories and poems in various journals and magazines over the years, and I’ve had some short stories in anthology books, like the Indigenous Science Fiction Anthology that was published by Theytus Books. I think that was 2016. But this is my first poetry book on its own.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Okay, wonderful! I’m really happy to have that included as part of [this] issue [of MuseMedusa] because it’s probably the piece of contemporary literature that taps the most into the theme of sky narratives, sky stories, and stories about the stars… So, I’m pleased about including this interview.

The book is a collection of what I would call poetic contemporary stories. It’s always complicated to put books in some categories, but this is how I’ve read this one… A poetic narrative about the world of stars and the star people… And I think it’s probably one of the most original books amongst everything that has been published so far, because it both taps into traditional sacred stories, but also contemporary stories about the stars. So, would you like to share a little bit about the project, where it came from, the motivation behind it, what brought you to write about stars from that Cree perspective?

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah. Well, I began writing poems about the stars and space, probably over a decade ago, and it was really a way of exploring new metaphors for the human condition. Again, with a lot of traditional poetry and especially romantic poetry, writers often turned to nature to search for metaphors for life and experience. But with our new technology and the changes in our society, I began to think, well, there’s a whole untapped resource of the cosmos out there that, while certainly poets in the past have written about stars and the planets and different cosmic experiences, I was searching for new ways of expression.

And then, also, at the same time, as I was finishing my graduate studies in Indigenous literatures, I began teaching at the First Nations University of Canada. In particular, I became interested in Cree cultures, for a couple reasons: because I teach in Saskatchewan and also mainly because, on my father’s side, my grandmother is Cree from Cowessess First Nation. So, with that part of my heritage, I began to study more about the Cree culture and Cree language as well. I would say, I don’t know… probably about five years ago is when I really got into learning and writing in the Cree language.

And then, I found more inspiration for writing star poems when I was at a talk by Leroy Little Bear, who is a Blackfoot educator. He did a series of talks on Indigenous spirituality and Western science, and the connections that there are between them. And he was talking about quantum physics, and the quantum superstrings, and the kind of virtual nature of the quantum level … and he made the statement, that “this is what Indigenous people have traditionally called spirit”. And that was the real connection for me, you know? Once I had that connection, then it kind of all flowed from there. It made a lot of sense as a way of bridging traditional spirituality and sacred stories with modern understandings of nature and the cosmos.

And then, of course, there is the work of Wilfred Buck, who’s a Manitoba Cree educator, and he’s been collecting star stories for years and years now. He’s been collecting them from his own community and from wherever he can find them, and, for years, he’s been really focused on educating young people about the stars and that the constellations aren’t just Roman and Greek constellations, but the Cree also had stories behind them. So, there’s a whole world of knowledge that is there, but then a lot of that knowledge was being lost. So, Wilfred Buck’s work was really valuable in reviving that understanding of the stars. That’s what really opened the door for me about the whole tradition of Cree star stories, Star Woman and Grandmother Spider and cahkâpês or Little Spirit, and Grandmother Moon and all of those spirit beings. There’s a lot of important lessons in those stories. So, I wanted to pursue that.

Marie-Eve Bradette : This is so interesting because in the past decades, Indigenous literatures were more about the land, the trees, the waters ; it was focused downward, but to have someone look… Looking up at the sky and to see an all-new way of envisioning knowledge and knowledge transmission through those particular stories opens a way to think more about temporality, I think, in a different way. I remember reading something about looking at the stars is also looking far behind in time. So, there is that junction between land and temporality that becomes very specific when we’re thinking about star stories that is not exactly in the same way as when we’re looking at the land and the waters and all of that as well.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Absolutely.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Because you were learning the Cree language at the same time as you were learning some traditional star stories… I was also curious about the process of learning the language and how does it modify or transforms the way of thinking about these stories? How did it become a lens through which you attract these particular stories? In other words, what is the relation between those star stories and the Cree language for you?

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : One of the ways I framed the Cree versions of the poems is by using the vocabulary of spirituality and ceremony. And this is going on that idea that the quantum level of reality is a metaphor for the spirit. So, the vocabulary… a lot of these words, of course, didn’t exist traditionally in the Cree language, like words for photons, or electrons, or protons, or those kinds of things. And so, I’ll just look at some vocabulary from the book. For instance, like the word for atom, right? The atoms that make up molecules, which make up matter, I translated “atom” as apisi-ahcahk-kiscikânis, which in English means “tiny spirit grain”. So, the idea here is that for everything at that quantum level, I included a spiritual connection. So, the word I use for electron in Cree is mêtoni apisi-ahcahk-akopayiwin, which in English means “very tiny spirit magnet”. And I chose that translation because the electron is connected to the electromagnetic force, right? So, there’s that element of magnetism with the electron, whereas with, say the photon, I translated as mêtoni apisi-ahcahk-iskocês, which means “very tiny spirit spark”. So, you have light… the photon is a fundamental particle of light, and I included that sense of spark, or, you know, a fire in the Cree word for photon. That was a real fun aspect of writing these star poems in Cree. And there’s so many more examples of that.

But that really opened a whole new door for me, because in the poems in the Cree language, they become even more metaphorical, right? There is a whole other level of mystery and color, because when you describe these fundamental particles in Western science, you’re already in the realm of metaphor in Cree. Which is a really, really, fascinating thing. And so, it starts to shape the structure or the lens, you know? Like you said, through the Cree version of the poem… And I call it a version because it’s not… I could not say it’s exactly a Cree translation of the English poem. It’s more like there’s an English version and a Cree version for each of these poems, because, in the process of writing them, they influenced each other. So, sometimes I’d start with the English poem and start translating it into Cree, but then in that translation, because it became so richly metaphorical, it would then influence back on the English, and I’d end up changing the English, in a really positive way. In a much more evocative way, right? It was a great synergistic process between the languages. And then sometimes I would start a poem in Cree, and then that would shape the structure of the English poem, which would then reshape the Cree poem. And so on.

Marie-Eve Bradette : So, the translation really was part of the creative process… Of the becoming poetry of these stories… Because the way the language works really influences both one language and the other.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Absolutely. Absolutely. It was always… It was almost like… It was exciting to anticipate… It was exciting to see what surprising effects would come out of starting to translate one of the poems, right? Because I knew, from past experiences, that there were going to be new ideas just springing from the whole process. In that sense, often I wasn’t really worried if the poem would be interesting or not, because I just knew that the whole process would unlock all of these wonderful features of the language.

Marie-Eve Bradette : It’s so interesting to think about that. There’s so much that we need to learn from the language and… From Indigenous languages in general… How it creates an all new, other world… How it creates poetry. But in the specific piece of work you did, how it also influences the interpretation of these stories… The stories too. Because – and you mentioned that in the preface of the book – the project is also part of your contribution to the revitalization of the Cree language. So when you wrote it, did you have a readership in mind? Was it produced with Cree learners, Cree speakers in mind, or… How did you envision that?

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, the readership was always first just the local community of Treaty 4. That’s really who I was writing for. And it’s why I kept the book local or regional to Saskatchewan. Like, I didn’t go outside Saskatchewan for a press to publish it, right? I wanted it to be a project for the community here and for learning the language first and foremost. So, it wasn’t really about trying to have a large reach or platform. Of course, if the book goes beyond Saskatchewan, that’s wonderful, right? But absolutely, first and foremost, it was intended as an experience for young people learning the language. And for people of all ages too really, of course. But in terms of the language revitalization, one hope is that the young generation keeps it alive.

Marie-Eve Bradette : What is interesting here is that it both keeps alive the language, but also the traditional stories about knowledge that has been erased… That has not been completely lost because there is that process of research and of these stories as well.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : So, yeah… They’re not completely lost, but that’s the thing with modern society in general… modernization is tending to make all traditions, both Indigenous and Western, just kind of homogenized, right? It’s kind of like the sweep of history can leave some of this knowledge behind if we don’t keep revitalizing it.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Yeah. It’s exactly keeping it… Revitalizing it from a very specific position also. You mentioned that you wanted to write that for Treaty 4. So also, it’s anchored in community, in particular knowledge. There’s not a pretension of having a story that bridges together every Indigenous nation across Turtle Island, but really something that is anchored in your own Cree culture. And I think this is very interesting as well. And that makes me wonder about the methodologies, the ethics, the protocols behind writing such a book. As scholars, we know that we are dealing with those questions when we’re writing scholarly work in Indigenous literatures. But even in a creative format, there are those questions that arise. So, how did you come about that process of writing sky stories? In the first part of the book, there is a very creative take into traditional stories, but there are still very important pieces of stories that you have been gifted with, I think? So, how did you engage with that kind of research? Because it was probably a lot of research also going into this book. Even if it’s poetry because of all the knowledge that it brings to the forefront.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, like I said, the first half of the book is one long poem… It’s an epic narrative. And then the second half of the book contains a series of stand-alone poems. The first half of the book draws on the tradition of Star Woman and the Hole-in-the-Sky and Grandmother Spider. And then also in the Cree language, I made sure that I was working closely with language keepers, mainly Solomon Ratt. And, of course, Wilfred Buck, who published a book of star stories, Tipiskawi Kisik, or Night Sky Stories. And so throughout it, I always wanted to make sure that I was doing it respectfully, you know? So, I always asked a lot of questions. Am I doing this right? Is this okay? And the same with various knowledge keepers. And it was always a very nerve-wracking process, right? Because you want to make sure that you’re respecting the tradition. But I was always reassured, because the knowledge keepers I was consulting really enjoyed the work and encouraged me to keep pursuing it.

And I address this issue, actually, the whole process of how we treat traditional knowledge and stories, in the first section of The Star Poems. One of the early poems in the narrative describes when Star Woman is exploring the cosmos and she’s seen everything because she’s immortal, so she’s been doing this for aeons, exploring. And she gets kind of bored, with a kind of sense of ennui, and Grandmother Spider says, “well, look in front of you, the universe is alive” and “You’re blessed to be present to witness the Creator still forming the fabric of the cosmos”. And so, with Grandmother Spider’s help, she sees deep into matter and sees all the quantum superstrings alive and vibrating. And so, she becomes enamored with that, and she starts to play with them and pull them up. And she says, “Grandmother, look at all these tiny threads. They each tell a story. Let us make a song of them and weave new stories for the stars”. So, the quantum strings become a metaphor… The fabric of the universe becomes a metaphor for the tradition itself. And so, we, as you know, when we come into the world, we find ourselves already embedded in a tradition. And then we start to examine the tradition and start pulling it apart… Pulling the threads apart and then weaving our own stories. However, we have to remember to be respectful, because in the poem, Star Woman starts pulling them up and she gets too excited about it, and she and Grandmother Spider kind of get intoxicated, you know, in the whole excitement of weaving new threads, weaving the threads into new stories, and then the whole thing starts to get out of hand and starts to fray, or the fabric starts to fray and fall apart. And they all get tangled up in it. And so, in a sense, it’s a self-reflective metaphor of my own treatment of the traditional story, a caution for not letting things get out of hand, right? Like, if we don’t pay attention to the tradition, we risk damaging or losing the original knowledge, supplanting it or overwriting it with modern knowledge. So, it’s important to be creative and renew these stories, but at the same time preserve the spirit of the original stories, right? And so that’s where, at this point in the poem, there’s kind of a divine intervention. The Creator comes in just in time and saves the universe. Or saves the tradition and just reminds Star Woman and Grandmother Spider to “be careful with the threads we find. Because they belong to the universe and hold the sky together”. So, you know, those threads that form the stars and the stories, “they’re there for everyone to see and hear. But remember to respect them when you play. Or else that harmony will be lost”. And the Creator says “now go and play,” but with that understanding.

Marie-Eve Bradette : So interesting how all the levels of interpretation in that particular story, how it both speaks at what does it mean to share stories as it also shares specific stories about the star at the same time. So, to me, it really reflects what Lee Maracle names “story as theory” in Indigenous cultures and literatures… How it embeds all these aspects of knowledge sharing, methodology, protocols… Everything is shared through stories.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Right. It’s the… All of those ideas are kind of allegorically embedded within the stories themselves, you know? That’s part of what’s meant when we say that the oral tradition was the education curriculum of traditional societies.

Marie-Eve Bradette : And I find it so interesting the way you’re speaking about that, because you’re always referring to how quantum physics and quantum concepts are metaphors of Indigenous spiritual concepts. So, you’re kind of shifting the focus. As we’re so used to think, in the public realm, or in media, about Indigenous culture and tradition being overly symbolic and trying to mean something about what is scientific, you know? And you’re doing the opposite, and it shifts the focus and the epistemological framework to engage with these stories from the Indigenous perspective and seeing how it does connect to modern science, but that modern science hasn’t invented everything. It was already there, since dawn of time, in Indigenous stories. So, it decenters the hierarchy between modern science and Indigenous spiritual knowledge.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Exactly. Yeah.

Marie-Eve Bradette : You’re doing that in the way you’re speaking about this, and I find this very, very interesting. Maybe, because you’ve shared so much already about the stories, what they mean, how they were brought, how you’ve engaged with them… I want to ask you what will be your wish for further generations? What do you want for young Cree people, for example, to take from that book and to bring with them? What do you want to be the legacy of such a book?

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : To tap into their own creative spirit. That it’s there for them to explore their ideas in whatever way that guides them. Not to inhibit themselves, you know? That you can write about all kinds of things. And even if you’re writing about your own culture, it doesn’t just have to be informed by older stereotypes or be stereotypically Indigenous. In other words, your writing can also just be about anything in the universe or anything in the world or nature. So, it’s important not to hold oneself back, in that sense.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Interesting! I think this is also what you did by bringing something that I… I seem to feel like being a fascination for quantum physics and, also Indigenous stories. So, you didn’t limit yourself to bringing that story only through the focus of Indigenous spirituality and tradition, but you also brought modern science into the conversation to expand on that knowledge.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Thank you so much for that. It also happens to be so inspiring because I was teaching, just before we met, a seminar on theories of resurgence, and we read Leanne Simpson’s Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back where she thinks about how to bring back these stories but in the present and turn them towards the future, while respecting these traditional stories also.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, absolutely. Like… One thing we want to remember about the oral tradition is that they were always ways of teaching us about survival, right? At root, these stories are about how to survive in the world. And so, they were always adapted to meet the needs of one’s contemporary times, one’s changing times. So, the oral stories would change as well. And so, I mean, in the ancient past, there might not have been much technological change over the generations, but once we hit the twentieth century, or even earlier in the late nineteenth century, and especially in the colonial era, a lot of the story keepers adapted those oral traditions to face the new economic and social realities, dealing with the fur trade or dealing with all kinds of new changes and upheavals, right? So, that’s an important part of the oral tradition… It changes to the contemporary times, and we see that today with some writers. Like, for instance, Warren Cariou wrote a story called “An Athabasca Story,” where he has the Elder Brother figure wandering haplessly in the Alberta oil sands. But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that it is about confronting the issue of climate change and the way that we treat the land today. So, the star stories that I wrote about kind of follow that trend as well – that practice of adapting the traditional stories in a way that helps us understand our contemporary world. But always again remembering to do it in a respectful way.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Yeah, exactly. Because in that first long epic poem, you did that. You begin from the start, from the creation of the universe and everything. But then at some point… Colonization happens, and it’s brought into… It’s weaved into those star stories in a way that still anchors that in those traditions, but also reflects on what it means to continue in the face of colonialism.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah. And go beyond it, right?

Marie-Eve Bradette : Yeah, exactly. And it’s interesting when thinking about the sky, because today we could think about… Is the sky decolonized? We know that the land has been destroyed and violated, but what about the sky? Is there something different about that? I think there’s a lot more to explore in the realm of the sky as to Indigenous stories, both traditional, but also contemporary Indigenous literatures that might want to address a little bit more that realm.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Absolutely.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Well, I think I have everything I wished for… We could have been talking a lot more about all of that, but I don’t want to take too much of your time. And I’m sure, once that will be put into text, it will bring a very good light to your book.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. Absolutely.

Marie-Eve Bradette : Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing these stories. It seems to be such a personal work that you’ve done… Something that really comes from an intimate space, the cultural, intimate, linguistic space.

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber : Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of my own life embedded in throughout the book as well. Can’t help that, you know!