In Cartograph we are taken through the deeply personal journey of healing from an injury to the wounds of colonization. Cara-Lyn Morgan takes us body part by body part through her being as she recovers, finding the healing for each ligament and tissue within herself. She also takes us to the places of her childhood, her family’s ancestral and contemporary lands, and reconciles colonial traumas there as well. To a young niece of hers she writes:
“I have brought you here
to give to you the only thing
there is. May you be wild,
a girl-pup mine
from long ago.”
(from “mîscacakânis”)
With her words she creates physical and metaphorical maps, reclaiming the art of cartography from its colonial imposition of borders and railway lines on traditional lands (the latter a nod to Morgan’s Métis grandfather and his brother who worked on the railway); these she weaves with the anatomical charts used in medical and healing practices (in reference to her father, a physician) to inform her poems. Cartograph is a book of optimism, of the possibilities of recovery now and for the future, of reconnection, and, ultimately, of healing.
