Marcie R. Rendon will join Birchbark Books on Tuesday, July 16 at 7:00 p.m. for a presentation of her new book Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium in conversation with Lyz Jaakola and Mark Erickson. This event is free and open to the public. 

In Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium, Marcie R. Rendon summons her ancestors’ songs, and her poem-songs evoke the world still unfolding around us, reflecting our place in time for future generations. Bringing memory to life, the senses to attention, she breaks the boundaries that time would impose, carrying the Anishinaabe way of life forward in the world.

"This collection undoubtedly sings through and for generations to come! These powerful poems ask us to trust the wind to catch and carry our songs and prayers. Through each page, Marcie R. Rendon guides us to radically dream a future of strength and reminds us that ‘Win or lose, there’s dancing to be done.’" —Tanaya Winder, author of Words Like Love

"Marcie Rendon is tired, too. But not too tired to do the hard labor of loving other human beings, and the earth, and the songs of her ancestors. As a fellow poet from the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, I could say that this collection is essential to the complicated song that is Minnesota, and that would be true, but also everyone, everywhere, needs to spend time with this book and find their own way to sing along with it or sit quietly and listen deeply to its songs." —Bao Phi, author of A Different Pond and Thousand Star Hotel

Musician & Cultural Educator Lyz Jaakola, also known as Nitaa-Nagamokwe, is an enrolled Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Tribal member who intertwines making art, music and educating. Lyz has been fulfilling cultural protocol by “paying it forward” through teaching for the last 32 years while also singing in various styles and venues such as traditional women’s hand drum circles, activist marches, jazz stages in the twin cities or local opera, choral or blues performances. A reservation-based performer, Lyz often works to bring others with her on stage and into the “limelight”, such as her mash-up band #theindianheadband, a women’s hand drum group Oshkii Giizhik Singers, or at her Tribal College’s Ojibwemowining Digital Arts Studio. Although very busy teaching, singing, making videos or parenting 3 wonderful children, she manages to find some time to write, record and produce original work sometimes sharing it live or on the internet. More recent projects are working on an ethnomusicology PhD, composing an opera celebrating Zitkala-sa (a Dakota woman activist, composer and educator) and performing at Kennedy Center in 2022. Lyz received recognition as a Native Nation Rebuilder, AICF Faculty of the Year (2018), Arrowhead Regional Arts Council George Morrison Artist Award (2014), Ordway’s Sally Award for Arts Educators (2013), and First People’s Fund Community Spirit Award (2012). She will be the first to say that any honor belongs to her husband, family, and community, because of their generous support and encouragement. Mostly, we owe all to our ancestors for what we have endured and retained so that we may be Anishinaabe.

Mark Erickson is an Anishinaabe traditional singer. His ancestral roots are the Pillager and Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Erickson's traditional singing is Chippewa, which started as a late teen, and he is now an elder approaching seventy years old. Erickson is currently the Mississippi Ojibwe Singers' drum keeper and lead singer. He is still active in many pow wows and drum and dance circles in the Twin cities