Undoing Hours

Selina Boan’s debut poetry collection, Undoing Hours, considers the various ways we undo, inherit, reclaim and (re)learn. Boan’s poems emphasize sound and breath; they tell stories of meeting family, of experiencing love and heartbreak, and of learning new ways to express and understand the world around her through the Nêhiyawêwan language.

As a settler and urban nehiyaw who grew up disconnected from her father’s family and community, Boan initially turns to language as one way to challenge the impact and legacy of assimilation policies and colonization on her own being and the landscapes she inhabits. Exploring the nexus of language and power, the effects of which are both far-reaching and deeply intimate, these poems consider the ways language impacts the way we view and construct the world around us, and what it means to be a moniyaw/nehiyaw woman actively building community and working to ground herself through language and relationships. Boan writes from a place of linguistic tension, tenderness, and care, creating space to ask questions and to imagine intimate decolonial futures.