The woman known as the poet laureate of the Mi'kmaq nation has died.

Rita Joe of Eskasoni died Tuesday night at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. She was 75.

Joe had published seven books, including five poetry anthologies and an autobiography, The Song of Rita Joe.

Joe's poetry and activism made her a symbol of native pride.

The Aboriginal Achievement Foundation says Joe worked throughout her life to counter native stereotypes, and her poems and songs reflect both pain and hope.

"If you write in a positive way, or think in a positive way about your culture … it will come back positive," she said in an interview with CBC Radio last month.

"I was brainwashed. 'You're no good,' I was told every day at Shubie [residential school]."

Joe was born in 1932, in Wycocomagh, N.S., and was sent to Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, which she attended until the eighth grade.

She married Frank Joe in 1954 and they had eight children and adopted two more.

Began writing in late 1960s

Rita began to write poetry in the late 1960s, but her first book was not published until 1978.

Her poems gently presented the First Nations experience within Canada, advocating love and understanding between peoples.

She wrote five poetry anthologies and an autobiography, . Her books include and Lnu and Indians We're Called.

Her sixth book, The Mi'kmaq Anthology, published in 1997, was co-written with Lesley Choyce.

Her philosophy has been to find the beauty in every place or circumstance and to keep an upbeat attitude about life.

"I told the audience that no matter from what circumstances you come from, and no matter from what culture, or how poor you are, everybody can do this," she said after receiving a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1997.

"You just have to put your effort into it and be positive. Don't try to work on the negative stuff."

Joe acted as an ambassador for native arts and culture throughout Canada and the U.S., even meeting the Queen.

A long-time activist who wrote numerous articles about native issues, Joe also served on the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, one of the few non-politicians ever to do so.

She was given the Order of Canada in 1990 and also won the Nova Scotia writers federation prize.

Joe told CBC last month she was amazed by all the accolades.

"I accepted on behalf of my people every time I was given an award," she said. "They helped, everybody helped in their own way."

Mar 25, 2007 - Halifax Herald

ELISSA BARNARD Arts Reporter

Nova Scotia lost a cultural hero Tuesday with the passing of celebrated Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe in Cape Breton at the age of 75.

Known as the poet laureate of the Mi’kmaq nation, Rita Joe died after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. Her daughters found a poem still in her typewriter.

Rita Joe overcame a difficult childhood spent in foster homes and at the Shubenacadie Residential School to publish seven books, mentor young writers, champion Mi’kmaq culture and meet Queen Elizabeth II.

The publication of her first book The Poems of Rita Joe in 1978 was "an extraordinary event," says Nova Scotia writer and publisher Lesley Choyce.

"That was probably the first book of Mi’kmaq poetry by a Mi’kmaq writer published in Nova Scotia. She was able to bring the Mi’kmaq language into publication, which is very rare."

Joe, who just celebrated her birthday March 15, was born in Whycocomagh in 1932. She was orphaned at age 10 and went on to live with a succession of foster families.

When she was in her 30s, Joe began writing verses to counter images of natives that filled the books read by some of her eight children. "She didn’t tell any of us she was going to write," recalled her daughter Frances Sylliboy.

Joe kept it a secret from her husband and children until her work was selected for an award in an annual contest held by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, of which she was a long-time member.

The boost of encouragement cultivated her lifetime goal of changing the perception some non-native people held of her people.

"She didn’t like them being portrayed in a negative way," said Sylliboy. "She wanted to pass along that positive, gentle, loving image of the Indian."

"I want to put out positive images of aboriginal people," Joe said in an interview years ago. "But everything I do is gentle persuasion. And that had more effect than a blockade."

Joe, who lived in Eskasoni, was able to transcend pain through art, says Jane Buss, executive director of the writers’ federation. "Her object was to be a fine writer and to take all the pain and transcend it through the stories, to transmute it into something that gave her people and her stories an honoured place. She succeeded in getting that all started."

In 1997, Joe and Lesley Choyce, of Pottersfield Press, co-edited The Mi’kmaq Anthology, a book featuring 16 Mi’maq writers and a resource Choyce still uses when teaching the aboriginal and black students in the Transition Year Program at Dalhousie University.

"She was out there encouraging Mi’kmaq writers to write and to publish and she would guide them to me as a publisher," he said. "It was a wonderful experience working with her. She had this quiet powerful voice in her poetry and when she spoke in public."

Mi’kmaq poet Lindsay Marshall, related to the writer through her late husband Frank Joe, said that upon meeting Joe "you would not think she was a literary powerhouse.

"She was very laid-back, introspective, very dignified and reserved, but through her poetry she spoke volumes. She didn’t let on her power."

He remembers seeing Joe, also a widely travelled public speaker, at Chapel Island.

"I saw her speak and recite her poems on a summer day in July and, for me, it moved me as a poet. It provided me with the courage to write.

"I think her legacy will be found in classrooms and universities where people are studying her poems," says Marshall, now director of the Mi’kmaq College Institute at Cape Breton University. "Poetry is a snapshot of our past and our culture. It becomes a living legacy."

An officer of the Order of Canada and one of the few non-politicians ever called to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, Joe received honorary degrees from Mount Saint Vincent, Dalhousie, St. Thomas and Cape Breton Universities as well as a National Aboriginal Achievement Award. She was also featured in television and radio documentaries, and wrote for several aboriginal and non-native publications.

"She fought hard and long to try to have some justice for the Mi’kmaq realized," says Mi’kmaq author and consultant Daniel Paul, a friend of Joe’s for 30 years. "I think she saw poetry as a way to express her concern about the way the Mi’kmaq were treated, the racism they suffered. She was very instrumental in inspiring people to strive for excellence in their life.

"She never hated anybody."

Joe’s books include Songs of Eskasoni (1988), Lnu and Indians We’re Called (1991), Kelusultiek (1995) and Songs of Rita Joe: The Autobiography of a Mi’kmaq Poet (1996).

That work continued until her final days.

"When we came home, we found papers still on her typewriter," said Sylliboy. The work found by her family was October Song, a poem with many revised copies still scattered near her work area.

The final copy reads: "On the day I am blue, I go again to the wood where the tree is swaying, arms touching you like a friend, and the sound of the wind so alone like I am; whispers here, whispers there, come and just be my friend."

Funeral for Joe will be held Monday, 10:30 a.m., in Holy Family Church. She is survived by nine children and was predeceased by four including one in infancy.

Material used with permission of Help Desk

March 29, 2007

Help Desk Honours Memory of Rita Joe

"Generosity of Spirit" are the words that best describes Rita Joe. Wela'liek, Rita. You have made us richer for your time with us.

From the very beginning of Atlantic Canada's First Nation Help Desk, Rita Joe helped to empower children and youth, believing in them, and in us, before we really believed in ourselves!....

... Rita's many works will live on. Her poem, "I lost my talk" resonates across the generations and appears in text books. Much will be said about her. Many will remember her instructions that it is time for the next generation to take up the struggle. Oh, that it could be done with as much grace and dignity again!

Wela'liek (thank you), Rita Joe.