A Fitting Addition to an Unmistakeable Idiom

“Marvin was a master at traversing boundaries, especially those of class and race and education. And because he moved so often between different worlds—from the Rez to the streets of Winnipeg to the halls of academe—he was able to produce a uniquely boundary-crossing art, one that situates his Cree culture very much in a contemporary, media-saturated, globalized and commodified landscape. This ability marks him as one of the most innovative and compelling recent voices in Canadian literature.”

—From bush camp foreword by Warren Cariou, author of Lake of the Prairies

WINNIPEG—bush camp is a dynamic poetry collection of dry wit and powerful commentary, and features Marvin Francis’s trademark subversive wordplay. bush camp is both a politically engaged achievement and a highly personal one, and is a fitting addition to the unmistakeable idiom of Francis. bush camp features a roster of strikingly original characters—Johnny Muskeg, Newfie, Stretch, as well as the camp’s only woman, Jenny—through which Francis plays with stereotypes as he challenges them. Francis describes the physical rigors of a railroad camp as well as the complex demands of the urban reserve. Poems splash out on the page in a wildly creative exploration of the clash of rural and urban, First Nation and majority cultures. bush camp is a new kind of howl.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marvin Francis’s (1955-2005) poetry appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies and he also wrote for stage and radio and he won the John Hirsch Award for Promising Manitoba Writer. He received his BA and MA from the University of Winnipeg and was pursuing his doctoral studies in English at the University of Manitoba. Francis was born in Heart Lake
First Nation in northern Alberta. He passed away in Winnipeg.