Jules Arita Koostachin : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

• I started writing when I was a young child because I was facing many challenges at home and at school, and writing was a way for me to escape my world; I found refuge in my imagination. Also, writing is a type of meditation for me, I almost feel like it is a way for me to channel stories from another time and place. In school a classmate gifted me with an old book of poetry by William Wordsworth and I immediately fell in love with his words. I read it over and over again.... I could not only see his words in my minds eye, but I could also feel his love and pain. Then later, I was introduced to Chrystos, an Indigenous poet; her writing resonated with me immediately, and I was soon inspired to write from my own lived experience. More so, I really engage with poets who can paint landscapes with their words, and I believe this is because InNiNiMoWin (Swampy Cree language) is a very animated and descriptive language and a way of understanding the world we live with.