Poet Joseph Dandurand (Kwantlen First Nation)

Writing is cathartic, says poet, who voices his trauma in new collection

Tuesday, October 7th, 2025  

Joseph Dandurand. Photo by Peter Arkell

 

By Shari Narine
Windspeaker.com Books Feature Writer

Joseph Dandurand’s latest collection of poetry, I Would Like to Say Thank You, is a raw look into a life that has been both hard and rewarding.

The Kwantlen First Nation poet calls writing poetry cathartic even if he’s sharing something with the reader that he has kept to himself for years.

“I think probably the emotion that I'm in in that moment when I'm creating something might allow me to put my guard down and allow trauma to be voiced in a way that is, unfortunately, soothing and traumatic at the same time,” said Dandurand.

His process is such that he allows whatever is in his head to flow on to the paper. Although what’s in his head at that moment may surprise him, he never stops to wonder why it’s there. Once a poem is written, he doesn’t change anything about it. However, his response upon re-reading it may not be the same as when he wrote it. 

“At times, if I allow it and depending on what kind of emotional state I'm in, for sure, reactions can be different,” said Dandurand

Despite being the titular poem, I Would Like to Say Thank You is the only poem that wasn’t written specifically for the collection. Previously unpublished, it’s the poem that Dandurand regularly reads to high school students when he’s teaching because “I just like the rhythm of (it). That's how I write. I write my poems how they would sound out loud to me.”

Dandurand said the poem “is the irony of saying thank you for abusing me.”

In the opening stanza, he thanks the nuns and priest at the Catholic school he attended for abusing him, and then goes on to recount becoming an alcoholic and drug addict. He writes: “…to you abusers/you cannot have me/you cannot destroy me/I can do that all by myself thank you.”

“I was an alcoholic by the age of 19 and I was a drug addict by the age of 26,” said Dandurand. “And that's what that's all about. I didn't need the abusers to ruin me. I could do that all by myself. Thank you.”

There are 43 poems in the collection, which he refers to as “a series of poems over time (with) not really any thematic application to them.”

He writes the titles first and they guide him to the end of the poem.

“Sometimes the titles have nothing to do with the beginning of what I'm about to create, but in some way they do in the end. It'll connect with the title in some way,” said Dandurand.

Dandurand’s compilation includes poems about fishing where “I sit there and light a smoke/and drift down river/away from my misery/and loneliness…”. He writes about how he “stopped the cycle” and didn’t hit his children like his father hit him. He writes about going “home to my paradise/where I am glad my kids are sober/working hard as a family of hope.” He writes about Christianity on his First Nation and how “the saints…have been forgotten/and now sit within an old book.” 

When he’s working on a poetry collection, Dandurand rises at 5 a.m. every day and writes one poem each day. This collection took him approximately one-and-a-half months to complete. He’s about 80 pages into a new poetry manuscript right now, he says.

Dandurand is also a playwright and short story writer, and he follows the same timeline. Up at five in the morning and producing one short story a day or writing one scene for a play each day. As he comes to the end of a project, he’s thinking ahead to the next. He always finishes one project before moving on to the next. 

“It's almost like I need to write and so I write every day and…I'll just start writing and it's usually images that I've stored in my head for the past few days or months or years,” he said.

In the poem “As if a transparent cloud enveloped me” he writes “…so many humans/to watch and remember/for use in future and past poems…”

Dandurand says his plays, with their monologues, and his short stories “are quite poetic.” He admits that of all the genres he tackles, it’s writing poetry he loves the most. 

From this latest collection of poetry, Dandurand hopes Indigenous readers can connect with him on an intimate level. In “Shattered,” he writes: “…how did I deal with it/but the wrong ways of course/drink and drugs and/fights and violence.”

“There must be hundreds of us that have lived elements of what I've lived and will make the connections. Hopefully it will show them that, for me, being sober is so much better than not being sober,” he said. “I hope that it might maybe light something for them to see. Survival is difficult, but you’ve got to sacrifice things.”

It’s a message that is as relevant today as it was when Dandurand, who is now 61, was young. He says he was recently speaking with a friend whose two children, in their late twenties, are struggling with alcoholism. 

As for non-Indigenous readers, Dandurand pulls from his time working in archaeology and museums. 

“One of the worst things I see within society is how we are frozen in time and how our history starts when their history starts. People do not realize that we were here when they got here. We're still here now and we're not going anywhere,” he said. 

Dandurand is the director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre. “On the side” he writes, teaches and fishes.

His 2020 poetry collection The East Side of It All was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2021, he received the BC Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. He has published 14 books of poetry, many of which are self-published prior to this past decade. He has a Diploma in Performing Arts from Algonquin College and studied theatre and direction at the University of Ottawa.

I Would Like to Say Thank You is published by Nightwood Editions and was released Sept. 23. It can be purchased in bookstores or online at https://harbourpublishing.com/

“Hands down, Joseph Dandurand is one of my all-time favourite writers...Good Lord—what a voice!”

–Richard Van Camp