Description
Emily Riddle is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw) in Treaty 6. She lives in Amiskwaciw skahikan (Edmonton). The Big Melt finds its centre in the role of Indigenous women in governance on the Prairies, the queer non-linearity of time and the vastness of intimate relationships in connecting us to territory. Poet Emily Riddle examines her own extended kinship network, connection to urban places, and waterways through both personal and historical interrogation. She illuminates pockets of hope in the imagination of a prairie landscape governed by a queer matriarchy.
This book is a reflection of Riddle’s own research into Treaty history, her experience working in Indigenous governance with First Nations across western Canada, and her own cultural mentorship with Knowledge Keepers. The Big Melt fits into a larger cosmology of Indigenous literature and is a response to poets such as Billy-Ray Belcourt, Rosanna Deerchild and Marilyn Dumont who write of the injustices and joys of the Prairies.
In 2021 Emily Riddle was awarded the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Award, and in 2023, she won the Griffin Poetry Prize - First Canadian Book Award and was a finalist for an Indigenous Voices Award.