Oh Witness Dey!
Agnes Marshall
, Barry Kazimer
, Dawn Macdonald
, Jude Castillo
, PATRICIA SOPEL
, Sarah Schwartz
, Tatiana Robinson
, Alliah Belza
, Linda Leitch
, Marilyn Stanley
, Deb Philippon
, Patricia Johnson
, Mary Lester
, cassandra schiemann
, Marissa Yip-Young
, Hoda Montazeri
, Catherine Booker
, Noelle Walsh
, Lynn Andrews
, Margo Beredjiklian
, Mary-Esther Lee
, Joanna McFarlane-Frampton
, Sharon Forzley
, Jen Amos
, Laura Patterson
, Christopher Evans
, Emmet Matheson
, Natasa Ilic
, Sindi Nika
, Amanda Schempp
, Rita O'Sullivan
, Andrea Pole
, P. Thompson
, Jocelyn Heisel
, Tanya Blake
, Benita Hartwell
, Heather Belliveau
, diana kirkwood
, Kim Cappellina
, Catherine Young
, Jay Rawding
, Rachel Lutz
, C. Ray
, M M English
, Deanna Radford
, Paula Ritchie
, BJ Underwood
, Elaine Baptie
, Nancy Daoust
, Jenna Lyn Albert
, Randi Ann Doll
, Susan Toy
, Janice Cournoyer
, Rosa Cross
, Rodney Cross
, Pamela Roberts Griffith
, Anne Range
, Patricia McKeown
, Charles Leblanc
, Joe Mitchell
, Joan Clare
, Rebecca Morris
, Robert Hykawy
, Christine Lion
, Lynn Bechtel
, Lisa Mallia
, Sara Conway
, Karen Nordrum
, Irenee R Anderson
, Zara Garcia-Alvarez
, Ken Gilmour
, Melissa Poremba
, Katie Masterson-White
, Janet Miller
, Prabh Toor
, Kym Marsh
, Connie Sparrow
, Erica Atfield
, Rachel Edmonds
, Shonna Froebel
, Joshua Lewis
, Lynn Hallson
, Margaret McKay
, Shireen Dada
, Denise Duvall
, Jennifer Beyak
, Paris Semansky
, Susan Jang
, Maureen Brownlee
, Vivian Thorgeirson
, Amie Gaudet
, Kitty Hoffman
editor@49thShelf.com
Shani Mootoo’s great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad as indentured labourers by the British. There is no record of where they were from in India or whether it was kidnapping, trickery, or false promises of wealth that took them to the Caribbean.
In Oh Witness Dey! Mootoo expands the question of origins, from ancestry percentages and journey narratives, through memory, story, and lyric fragments. These vibrant poems transcend the tropes of colonial violence through saints and spices, rebellion and joy, to reimagine tensions and solidarities among various diasporas. They circumvent traditional conventions of style to find new routes toward understanding. They invite the reader to witness history, displacements, and the legacies of our inheritance.
