Canon

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Influences / Writers

Jake Beka, Lee Maracle, Joshua Whitehead, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Marilyn Dumont, Richard Van Camp, Tomson Highway, Eden Robinson, Gregory Scofield, Daniel Heath Justice, Cherie Dimaline, Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Anne Carson, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, Leonard Cohen, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Herbert Huncke, Lucien Carr, Gary Snyder, Neal Cassady, Bob Kaufman, LeRoi Jones, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs

Books

Part I

Sink Hole: Poems — Jake Roy Beka ★★★★☆
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear — Elizabeth Gilbert ★★★★☆
Things in Nature Merely Grow — Yiyun Li ★★★★★
Carmilla — J. Sheridan Le Fanu ★★★★☆
A Thousand Acres — Jane Smiley ★★★★☆
Real Ones — Katherena Vermette ★★★☆☆
Pedagogy of the Oppressed — Paulo Freire ★★★★★
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood — Marjane Satrapi
Clementine: Book One — Tillie Walden
This Is How You Lose the Time War — Amal El-Mohtar
Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) — Lorna Crozier
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History — Art Spiegelman
Yellowface — R.F. Kuang
I'm Just Waiting for Something to Happen — Felix Da Costa Gomez ★★★★★
The Blazing World and Other Writings — Margaret Cavendish
On the Fringe: A Collection of Filth — Danae Webb ★★★★★
Bunny — Mona Awad
My Year of Rest and Relaxation — Ottessa Moshfegh
The Double Life of Benson Yu — Kevin Chong
The Fake — Zoe Whittall
The Book Thief — Markus Zusak
The Diary of a Young Girl — Anne Frank
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity — David Allen
The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger
The Metamorphosis — Franz Kafka
Leaves of Grass — Walt Whitman
The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Padmasambhava

Part II

Bad Cree — Jessica Johns
Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice
Becoming a Matriarch: A Memoir — Helen Knott
Our Wives Under the Sea — Julia Armfield
From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way — Jesse Thistle
The North-West Is Our Mother: The Story of Louis Riel's People, the Métis Nation — Jean Teillet
Stories of Métis Women: Tales My Kookum Told Me — Bailey Oster
Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality — Chantal Fiola
Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities — Chantal Fiola
Black Elk Speaks — John G. Neihardt
True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change — Jody Wilson-Raybould
All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward — Tanya Talaga
Valley of the Birdtail — Andrew Stobo Sniderman
Half-Breed — Maria Campbell
Making Love with the Land: Essays — Joshua Whitehead
The Strangers — Katherena Vermette
Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day — Kaitlin B. Curtice
Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith — Sarah Bessey
Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future — Patty Krawec
Restoring the Kinship Worldview — Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows)
Rose Quartz: Poems — Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
A Grandmother Begins the Story — Michelle Porter
Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care — Kelly Hayes
Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics — Marc Lamont Hill
The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs — Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock — Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity — Leah Myers
Tricky Grounds: Indigenous Women's Experiences in Canadian University Administration — Candace Brunette-Debassige
Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed — Paulo Freire
Decolonial Pedagogy: Examining Sites of Resistance, Resurgence, and Renewal — Njoki Nathani Wane
Wayi Wah! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education — Jo Chrona
Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University — Matt Brim
Troubling Education: Queer Activism and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy — Kevin K. Kumashiro
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom — bell hooks
Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature — Qwo-Li Driskill
Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities — Martha C. Nussbaum
Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy — Maggie Berg
Living is Dying: How to Prepare for Dying, Death and Beyond — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry — Jane Hirshfield
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love — bell hooks
Novelist as a Vocation — Haruki Murakami
The Science of Storytelling — Will Storr
Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues — Kavita Das
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction — Joshua Whitehead
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper — Roland Allen
Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life — Margaret Price
First Nations Version: An Indigenous Bible Translation of the New Testament — Terry M. Wildman
The Writer's Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing — John Warner
How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill — Jericho Brown
Poetry as Spiritual Practice — Robert McDowell
Being True to Life: Poetic Paths to Personal Growth — David Richo
Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within — Kim Addonizio
Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words — Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
Why Poetry Matters — Jay Parini
Poetry as Survival — Gregory Orr
The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing — Richard Hugo

Currently Reading

Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping — Matthew Salesses
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom — Felicia Rose Chavez
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within — Natalie Goldberg
Poetry as Spellcasting: Poems, Essays, and Prompts for Manifesting Liberation and Reclaiming Power — Tamiko Beyer

Films

Television

Better Call Saul
The OA
The Leftovers
Moral Orel
Bojack Horseman

Music

Indie Folk & Singer-Songwriter

Sufjan Stevens, Lizzy McAlpine, The Mountain Goats, Phoebe Bridgers, Death Cab for Cutie, Tiny Habits, Bon Iver, The Army, The Navy, Damien Rice, Ethel Cain, The Postal Service, Annabelle Dinda, Bob Dylan, Elliott Smith, Joni Mitchell, Bright Eyes, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Swell Season, The Antlers

Punisher — Phoebe Bridgers
Older — Lizzy McAlpine
Older (and Wiser) — Lizzy McAlpine
Carrie & Lowell — Sufjan Stevens
All For Something — Tiny Habits
Seven Swans — Sufjan Stevens
Carrie & Lowell Live — Sufjan Stevens
Transatlanticism — Death Cab for Cutie
Fruit For Flies — The Army, The Navy
The Avalanche — Sufjan Stevens
Illinois — Sufjan Stevens
The Sunset Tree — The Mountain Goats
Tallahassee — The Mountain Goats
All Hail West Texas — The Mountain Goats
Transcendental Youth — The Mountain Goats
Beat the Champ — The Mountain Goats
In League with Dragons — The Mountain Goats
The Fool — Ryn Weaver
Blood on the Tracks — Bob Dylan
Roman Candle — Elliott Smith
Either/Or — Elliott Smith
XO — Elliott Smith
Figure 8 — Elliott Smith
From a Basement on the Hill — Elliott Smith
Blue — Joni Mitchell
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning — Bright Eyes
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea — Neutral Milk Hotel
Strict Joy — The Swell Season
Hospice — The Antlers

Post-Rock & Math Rock

Flawed Mangoes, Mogwai, Yvette Young, Godspeed! You Black Emperor

The Unwavering Hand — Flawed Mangoes
Killswitch Melodies — Flawed Mangoes
Anomaly III — Flawed Mangoes
Anomaly IV — Flawed Mangoes
Happy Songs for Happy People — Mogwai
Acrostic — Yvette Young
Cordelia — Yvette Young

Midwest Emo

American Football, Modern Baseball, toe

American Football (LP1) — American Football
American Football (LP2) — American Football
American Football (LP3) — American Football

Hip-Hop & R&B

Kanye West, Indigenouz, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar

The Life Of Pablo — Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — Kanye West
Blonde — Frank Ocean
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers — Kendrick Lamar

Electronic & Hyperpop

brakence, Porter Robinson, Daft Punk, James Blake

hypochondriac — brakence
Worlds — Porter Robinson
James Blake — James Blake

Video Game Soundtracks

C418, Aaron Cherof

One — C418
Minecraft: Tricky Trials (Original Game Soundtrack) — Aaron Cherof
Music from Braid — Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz

Neoclassical & Chamber

Vitamin String Quartet, Garth Stevenson, Giulia De Serio

Profondità — Giulia De Serio
Flying — Garth Stevenson

Musical Theatre

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hamilton — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Ambient & New Age

Kazuhiro Hotaru, Enyaq, myndstream, Broken Peak, So Lis, Pillow Dalliance, Orvalis, Miravaldini, Spaced Out Dreams, Oliver The Penguin, Cosmazul, Digitalis, Ahti Aeo, La Kalon, Nadia Bulic, Ookean, DEX 1200, Neioh, Pause Infinite, Maurie, Decie Orion, Eieove, Mica & Tina