Rita Joe is a Mi’kmaq woman, the first Mi’kmaq to be honoured for her poetry by the Nova Scotia Writers’ Federation (in 1978) and the first Mi’kmaq woman to be entered into the Order of Canada (in 1990). Rita Joe tells of her harsh life: orphaned at age five, passed from one bleak foster home to another, spending four years at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, living through a difficult and abusive marriage, giving birth to eight children, and living to see her great grandchildren. Poetry from her three published books: Poems of Rita Joe (1978); Song of Eskasoni: More Poems of Rita Joe (1988); and Inu and Indians We’re Called (1991) are interspersed throughout the text.

Rita Joe’s story is also the story of a generation of aboriginal people who came of age during the ’40s and ’50s. We refer to many who lived in this period as the “lost generation” as they were taught to be ashamed of their aboriginal heritage and many of the traditional cultural practices and teachings disappeared as a result. This period of aboriginal history is only beginning to be written about. Rita Joe’s story helps put a human face on this time.

This is a story of intense personal struggle: a woman trying to understand and make sense of the trauma of her life and people. Rita Joe has seen much hardship and one would expect that the story of her life would be filled with remorse, bitterness, and anger. This is not the case. Rita Joe writes with passion and a desire to set the record straight about her life and her people. She writes that she has chosen to focus on the goodness of things, on the positive side and to seek out what is good in all situations. This relentless optimism coupled with a strong will and a belief in the spiritual strength of her own Mi’kmaq culture ensures her survival and makes her a leader within her community.

Rita Joe writes with simplicity, candour, and kindness. She tells her life story in the storytelling tradition of our elders, a straightforward narrative style that is meant to instruct and to teach. Like all good stories, a part of the joy is in the telling, in listening to the delight or sadness of the teller, and of being swept away into her world.

Rita Joe tells her husband that they must “forget and forgive” the things that happened to them while growing up at the Shubenacadie Indian School. On this one point I must disagree with her: we must forgive, but we must not forget. And Song of Rita Joe will help us not forget.