Photo credit
Bernard Clark

Biography

Poet, writer and scholar Armand Garnet Ruffo was born in Chapleau, Northern Ontario and is a band member of the Chapleau Fox Lake Cree First Nation with roots to the Sagamok Ojibway First Nation. Drawing on his Indigenous heritage, Ruffo focuses on Indigenous-settler relations as well as Indigenous ways of knowing, including spirituality and the environment. His books include Grey Owl: the Mystery of Archie Belaney (1996/ 2020); At Geronimo's Grave (2001) winner of the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry; The Thunderbird Poems (2015); Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird (2014), and Treaty# (2019), the latter two both finalists for Governor General’s Literary Awards.  He teaches in the English Department at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

I think that the first poem that caught my attention in High School was by the American poet Robert Frost.  I could relate to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" because the landscape that Frost draws in his poem is similar to mid-winter in northern Ontario. Everything is cold and quiet, the sky lit by stars so bright it feels as if you can reach out and touch them. 

 

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I started scribbling down all kinds of things in High School, including what I was calling songs at the time, a precursor to writing poetry, I suppose, although I have to say that I was much more interested in visual art at the time.  

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

To write meaningful poetry.

If you have a poem in our anthology what inspired you to write it?

My "Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott" came about when I heard that my great, great grandfather, Sahquakegick, met Scott who travelled through Northern Ontario during the Treaty 9 negotiations. 

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

There are so many memorable poems in the anthology.

Publications

Title
Treaty#
Publisher
Wolsak & Wynn
Date
2019
Publication type
Book
Title
The Thunderbird Poems
Publisher
Harbour Publishing
Date
2015
Publication type
Book
Title
Grey Owl: the Mystery of Archie Belaney
Publisher
Coteau Books/ Wolsak & Wynn (new edition)
Date
1996/ 2021
Publication type
Book
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