Born Sacred: Indigenous Solidarity and World-Making with Smokii Sumac

Venue: First Peoples’ Gathering House
Date/Time: November 12, 2 PM - 4:30 PM

On Wednesday, November 12, we joined together for an afternoon in conversation with award-winning Ktunaxa two spirit artist and writer Smokii Sumac on his newest poetry collection, Indigenous solidarity, storytelling, and liberation.

Speakers:

Smokii Sumac is a Ktunaxa two spirit poet, emerging playwright, painter, and Cultural Youth Worker. He has released two poetry collections and is working on a spoken word album forthcoming in early 2026. Smokii lives in ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa with his husband, their cats, chicken, and a “big ole rez dog” named Kootenay Lou.

Cornel Bogle is a poet and an assistant professor of Black diasporic literatures in the Department of English.

Adel Iskandar is an associate professor of Global Communication and the director of CCMS.

Cosponsors:

Department of English; Indigenous Voices Awards (IVAs); Department of World Languages & Literatures; CCMS; Global Asia Program.

This is a link for the publishers profile on the poet and the book:

https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/authors/view/smokii-sumac