Jamesie Fournier
Biographie
Jamesie Fournier is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and educator from the NWT. His debut horror book, The Other Ones, was animated into stop-motion. His poetry collection, Elements, was published in Inuktitut and English. His children’s book, Lemming’s First Christmas, was animated in English and Inuktitut. His interactive exhibit, Nanualuk, is on display until 2029 at the Montreal Science Centre. He divides his time between Nunavut, Ontario, and the NWT.
Entrevue
Poetry was generally something we studied once a year in school. However, they were mostly white males.
Poe, Robert Service, Charles Bukowski stuck out to me as a kid.
'The Cremation of Sam McGee' still rolicks through my head once and while.
I first started writing poetry when I realized I didn't have to wait for the poetry unit in ELA. Obvious really.
I probably started considering myself a poet around then. Why not?
To look at the world inside ourselves and the world outside ourselves and see where they meet.
Subliminal
It became part of a series I was writing on Indigenous grievances.
That year many Indigenous issues were flung into the Canadian spotlight and I became dispirited that in this day and age that such egregious public racism and blatant colonial industrial abuse on Indigenous nations was so prevalent and just... accepted?
In my book 'Elements' the final section of the book is titled 'Fire' that tries to tap into that nerve of anger and disappointment with the world. I had not even planned on making Subliminal a part of that collection, it was more of a writing exercise, but once I got through to the end I realized it became more of the flag song of that collection if not the book itself.