Poetry, Identity, and the City We Share: Voices from Undi and Deerchild

Poetry Reading Event, Threads of Kin and Belonging: A Trinnipeg Live Mixtape Project - April 13th, 2025

On a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG), poets Chimwemwe Undi and Rosanna Deerchild read from their collections, Scientific Marvel: Poems and She Falls Again.

Books: Chimwemwe Undi: Scientific Marvel: Poems , Rosanna Deerchild: Collection

What unfolded wasn’t just a poetry reading, but a vivid and heartfelt conversation about place, perspective, and the layers of identity that shape life in Winnipeg for Indigenous and Black communities.

Organized as part of Threads of Kin and Belonging: A Trinnipeg Live Mixtape Project programming, the room buzzed with warmth, laughter, shared recognition, thoughtful nods, and curious questions. It was clear that this gathering struck a chord.

At the heart of the discussion was a singular, complex theme: "Winnipeg." Not a fictional or romanticized version of the city, but the real, raw, complicated city as experienced by two very different voices.

One City, Two Experiences

Undi, of Namibian descent, Deerchild, an Indigenous poet, had distinct voices, but their poetry found surprising intersections. They reflected on the city with specificity, naming places like Portage Place, South End vs. North End experiences, touching on Newcomer narratives, Indigenous people's experiences, frigid winters, beautiful summers, Pride celebrations, and spaces like Club200.

Urban Complexity in Poetic Form

The poets captured the messiness of the city: its isolation, its intimacy, its contradictions. Their readings touched on history, economic mobility, belonging, feminism, cultural survival, and finding your voice within systems that often try to erase it.

Winnipeg, through their poems, became a prism. The same streets reflected different meanings depending on who was looking.

The City is Personal

The city felt personal. And political. Messy, beautiful, and real. Personally, it made me rethink my own experience of Winnipeg. What drew me here in the first place? How has my view of the city shifted?

Towards the end of the reading, during the Q&A section, I didn't have a specific question, but I shared my experience with feeling drawn to the Francophone and Metis community of Winnipeg before I moved here, and why Central Saint Boniface remains my favorite neighborhood in Winnipeg.

In the end...,

The Winnipeg experience, as the poets revealed, is layered and deeply personal. It varies by neighborhood, personal background, lifestyle, relationships, and cultural identity.

Issues of belonging come up as we interact within the diversified communities of Winnipeg. Our relationship with the city is subjective, our interactions shaped by the immediate environments we find ourselves in and the ancestral and cultural legacies we each inherit.

Thank you to Threads of Kin and Belonging project and the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG ) for hosting events such as this one.  It provides a public platform for individuals to engage in meaningful conversation about the city, their varied urban lifestyles, and the communities shaping their urban experiences.