Marie Annharte Baker
Encyclopedia
Marie Annharte 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"
Anishinaabe
Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
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
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, where she is currently based. She has been associated with (studied or taught at) the University of Manitoba
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...
, University of Winnipeg
University of Winnipeg
The University of Winnipeg is a public university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and theology as well as graduate programs. The U of W's founding colleges were Manitoba College and Wesley College, which merged...
, Brandon University
Brandon University
Brandon University is a Canadian university located in the city of Brandon, Manitoba, with an enrolment of 3383 full-time and part-time students. The current location was founded on July 13, 1899, as Brandon College as a Baptist institution. It was chartered as a university by then President Dr....
, and University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
. 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
Poetry & Performance
- Indigena Bushy Tales, Aqua Books, Winnipeg MB, 2011
- I'POYI Marie Anneharte Baker at the Glenbow, Calgary AB, 2009
- I'POYI Panel 1 Marie AnnHarte Baker, 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-FMCFRO-FMCFRO-FM, licensed and owned by Vancouver Co-operative Radio, is a non-commercial community radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Coast Salish territory. It is a legally registered co-operative and is branded as Co-op Radio. They broadcast on 102.7 megahertz FM...
, National Campus and Community Radio AssociationNational Campus and Community Radio AssociationThe National Campus and Community Radio Association/L'Association nationale des radios étudiantes et communautaires is a non-profit organization of campus radio and community radio stations in Canada.... - 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 (Wilfred 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)