For more than 100 years, during the 19th and 20th centuries, residential schooling was the Canadian government’s answer to the educational needs of the country’s indigenous population. Children from indigenous communities were removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools, where they were instructed by members of the church to view themselves as “Canadian” as opposed to “native.”

In hindsight, the flaws in this system are abundantly apparent. Between their woeful under-education, a lack of parental influence and systematic abuse, the children emerged scarred and unprepared for life in Canadian society. In the latter half of the 20th century, residential schooling was recognized as an unmitigated failure and, more recently, the Canadian government has embarked on programs of reconciliation and compensation to those affected.

The history and impact of residential schooling has been relentlessly explored by Canadian historians, but when Sam McKegney was completing his undergraduate degree in English, he was surprised that no one was studying the literature that emerged from residential schools. “When I started looking at the literature, I found some extremely creative and imaginative interactions with that history, ones that didn’t simply treat it as a cause for victim-hood,” he says. “There was more going on, and I wanted to search it out.”

Now, as a teacher of indigenous and Canadian literature at Mount Royal College, McKegney has released Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community after Residential School, a collection of literary analyses examining residential school survival narratives. The essays delve into a wide range of Indigenous writings, from the popular literature of Tomson Highway (Cree), Rita Joe (Mi’kmaq) and Basil Johnson (Ojibway), to the lesser-known prison narratives of Anthony Apakark Thrasher (Inuit).

“The problem with the strict historical approach to residential schooling is that it removes agency from the indigenous individual to create change, to re-imagine the self,” says McKegney. “It constructs the native individual as a victim. Each of these writers, however, is mapping out his or her own future. I wanted to look at the ways in which these individuals can maintain a sense of cultural integrity, even though they’ve been through this assimilative endeavour. I’m trying to draw people’s attention to the ways in which indigenous people can make their communities fertile, functional, happy and empowered again.”

The titular Magic Weapons refer to Tomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen, in which two Cree boys use their residential school training in classical piano and ballet — European art forms — to reinvigorate their Cree culture. For McKegney, the magic weapons are words and language, learned in assimilative institutions, but used to ensure the survival of indigenous culture.

Magic Weapons was published by the University of Manitoba Press in November 2007 and can be found at local bookstores or online at www.umanitoba.ca/publications/uofmpress.

Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a dazzling centre for art and culture. After its devastation, Ashis Gupta set out to recapture its former glory in For New Orleans & Other Poems, a poetry anthology that unites more than 50 writers in celebration of the Big Easy. Gupta will sign copies of her book at McNally Robinson (120 8 Ave. S.W.) on December 22, 2 p.m.

Calling all video poets: The Calgary International Spoken Word Festival is seeking submissions for “Press-Go Video-Poe,” a special event in the 2008 festival celebrating poetry that leaps off the page with electronic innovation. For more information, visit www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com.