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Virgin Bones
Virgin Bones
Shirley Bear

Virgin Bones is a wise and stunning collection of art, poetry and political writing from multi-media artist and First Nation elder Shirley Bear, blending Bear’s personal poetic voice with her incisive cultural and political vision.

Documenting Bear’s artistic, political and critical development from the sit-ins of the sixties to the stand-off at Oka, Virgin Bones extends over a life, a generation and a nation.
Colour reproductions of selected art are interwoven with archival photos, personal stories and critical reflections to produce a narrative that respectfully and stubbornly wrestles down the dominant point of view. In this forceful meditation, Bear quietly and surely divines the sacred in the everyday.

“In Virgin Bones, Shirley Bear becomes a weaver—of tales, of friendships, of family, and of all the relations that mark our interdependencies on this fragile earth. Her richly crafted poems dazzle with visual images and critical reflections. The spine tingles and the imagination churns. Resonant, meditative, tough, playful, passionate, entrancing, and wise, Bear’s voice gives generously without giving it all away. We have needed such a voice for a long time.”
Roy Miki

“These poems span a life, a generation, a nation, a sisterhood, following a consciousness unfolding through hard times and heart times, through the sit-ins of the sixties to the stand-off at Oka. Shirley Bear paints with language and speaks in the hot colours of conviction. Romantic and plain-spoken, argumentative and compassionate, a witness and protagonist, Shirley Bear delivers unflinching candour with disarming generosity and an invitation to join the dance and the revolution. One woman’s refusal, one artist’s triumph.”
Susan Crean


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