Biographie
Poet, writer and scholar Armand Garnet Ruffo was born in Chapleau, Northern Ontario and is a band member of the Chapleau Fox Lake Cree First Nation with roots to the Sagamok Ojibway First Nation. Drawing on his Indigenous heritage, Ruffo focuses on Indigenous-settler relations as well as Indigenous ways of knowing, including spirituality and the environment. His books include Grey Owl: the Mystery of Archie Belaney (1996/ 2020); At Geronimo's Grave (2001) winner of the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry; The Thunderbird Poems (2015); Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird (2014), and Treaty# (2019), the latter two both finalists for Governor General’s Literary Awards. He teaches in the English Department at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Entrevue
I think that the first poem that caught my attention in High School was by the American poet Robert Frost. I could relate to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" because the landscape that Frost draws in his poem is similar to mid-winter in northern Ontario. Everything is cold and quiet, the sky lit by stars so bright it feels as if you can reach out and touch them.
I started scribbling down all kinds of things in High School, including what I was calling songs at the time, a precursor to writing poetry, I suppose, although I have to say that I was much more interested in visual art at the time.
To write meaningful poetry.
My "Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott" came about when I heard that my great, great grandfather, Sahquakegick, met Scott who travelled through Northern Ontario during the Treaty 9 negotiations.
There are so many memorable poems in the anthology.