Marie Annharte Baker
Marie Annharte (born 1942) is an Anishnabe poet and author, a cultural critic and activist, and a performance artist/contemporary storyteller. Former surnames are Baker and Funmaker.
Through books, poetry, essays, interviews and performance Annharte articulates and critiques life from western Canada, with a special focus on women, urban, indigenous, disabilities, academic, and poverty-centric (or "street") awareness and issues/foibles.
From Little Saskatchewan First Nations, Annharte was born in 1942 and grew up in Winnipeg, where she is currently based. She has been associated with (studied or taught at) the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg, Brandon University, and University of Minnesota. She has collaborated with or co-founded numerous groups of community-based writer activists, including Regina Aboriginal Writers Group and the Aboriginal Writers Collective of Manitoba. She was a founding member of the Canadian Indian Youth Council. Presently, she is organizing Nokomis Storyteller Theatre which features comic/clown and puppet performances.
Her poetry is intimately connected to her performance and visual art practises. "Recycling and reworking bits and pieces which are found or ‘to hand’ into new forms, bricoleur-style, is a process which she foregrounds in poems such as “Raced Out to Write This Up” and “Coyote Columbus Cafe.” As one of her personas or identities, Annharte has taken on the “scavenger or scrounge artist,” especially in a re-invention of herself as Rakuna Kahuna, a “wise raccoon” street name (“Marie Annharte” 63). — Lally Grauer" "A Weasel Pops In & Out of Old Tunes"
Books
- Being on the Moon, Polestar, 1990, Raincoast Books 2000
- Coyote Columbus Cafe, Moonprint, 1994
- Exercises in Lip Pointing, New Star Books 2003
- Indigena Awry, New Star Books 2013
Poetry and performances
- Indigena Bushy Tales on YouTube, Aqua Books, Winnipeg MB, 2011
- I'POYI Marie Anneharte Baker at the Glenbow on YouTube, Calgary AB, 2009
- I'POYI Panel 1 Marie AnnHarte Baker on YouTube, Calgary AB, 2009
- Marie Annharte Baker: Three Poems, Schroedinger's Cat, 2009
- The Poetry of Marie Annharte Baker
Interviews and articles
- Johanson, Reg, "Guerilla Backchat" with Marie Annharte Baker, Capilano Review, Winter 2010 Issue 3.10
- Baker, Marie Annharte, “Mirror Woman: Cracked Up Crazy Bitch Conja Identity” in Living the Edges: A Disabled Woman's Reader by Diane Driedger (Inanna Readers Series, Inanna Publications, 2010)
- Butling, Pauline and Susan Rudy, Poets Talk: Conversations with Robert Kroetsch, Daphne Marlatt, Erin Moure, Dionne Brand, Marie Annharte Baker, Jeff Dirksen, and Fred Wah (Currents in Canadian Literature, The University of Alberta Press, 2005)
- Baker, Marie Annharte and Lally Grauer, “A Weasel Pops In and Out of Old Tunes”: Exchanging Words [PDF]
- Baker, Marie Annharte, Medicine Lines: The Doctoring of Story and Self in CWF/CF: Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahieres de la Femme (Vol 14 No 2) 1994 [PDF]
- Baker, MA, "Angry Enough to Spit but with Dry Lips it Hurts More than You Know," Canadian Theatre Review, 1991
- Baker, MA, "An Old Indian Trick Is to Laugh," Canadian Theatre Review (68 Fall) 1991
Work in other media
- Baker, Marie Annharte, "Too Tough," in Five Feminist Minutes, produced by Mary Armstrong & Nicole Hubert, Studio D, NFB, 1990
- Baker, Marie Annharte, "Some of My Best Friends Are," CBC Fringe Radio Drama, contest winner
- Baker, Marie Annharte, "MocTalk," regular radio arts column on "When Spirit Whispers," CFRO, show hosted by Gunargie O'Sullivan & others; Moctalk aired from 1998-2003 (dates approximate; source, Gunargie O'Sullivan, radio producer & host, CFRO-FM, National Campus and Community Radio Association
- Baker, Marie, "Albeit Aboriginal: A One-Axe Play," International Women's Playwrights Conference Collection, 1980, performed by The Nokomis Players at several festivals, including The Nightwood Theatre's Groundswell Festival, Toronto
Critical responses
- Legatte, Judith, "Quincentennial Trickster Poetics," in Troubling Tricksters: Revisioning Critical Conversations (Indigenous Studies) by Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2010)
- Johanson, Reg, "Straight Forward Approach: Annharte’s Exercises in Lip Pointing," in ANTIPHONIES: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada by Nate Dorward (The Gig, 2008)
- Johanson, Reg, review of Exercises in Lip Pointing, (The Rain Review of Books, 2003)
External links
- Marie Annharte Baker, ABC Bookworld, http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=7672
- Marie Annharte Baker, Native American Authors, http://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A161
- Haskell Indian Nations University -Theatre - Native Playwrights Alpha Listing
- International Women Playwrights Collection /albeit-aboriginal-a-one-axe-play-by-marie-baker-1980-script/oclc/625336386&referer=brief_results
- “A Weasel Pops In and Out of Old Tunes”: Exchanging Words [PDF], journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/download/10203/10555
- Five Feminist Minutes, Melbourne International Film Festival, Film Archive http://miff.com.au/60_years_of_miff/film_archive?movieid=19956
- Five Feminist Minutes, NFB Film Collection, http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=26031
- Medicine Lines: The Doctoring of Story and Self, Canadian Women Studies/CF {PDF]
- Ryan Klatt Art, ryanklattart's Channel, Indigena Bushy Tales at Aqua Books recording
- rmajzels's Channel, I'POYI recordings
- Schroedinger's Cat, e-magazine