‘Dear Phoenix’

Dad Era
by Jordan Abel

Toronto: Coach House Books, 2026
$17.95 / 9781770569003

Reviewed by Heather Simeney MacLeod

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Nisga’a writer and university professor Jordan Abel is the recipient of major awards for his work, including the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, among others. Dad Era is the Vancouver-born author’s sixth book, which as the title asserts is the beginning of the era of fatherhood. It moves and is seemingly directed as a compilation of declarations directed and prompted by, understandably, the birth of his daughter, Phoenix; however, it is a nuanced collection examining fathers, lineage, place, and the complexities of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.

Indeed, the collection closes with the evocative and the declarative. Abel writes: “Did you know that I refuse to apologize for celebrating our / joy because Billy-Ray Belcourt tells us that / Indigenous joy ‘is an ethics of resistance.’ / Welcome to the world, Phoenix.” In this way, the ending returns the reader to the opening, “Dear Phoenix, / You are a small child. / I am a person who lives with you.” The circular quality from the close to the opening is a returning to what is most prevalent in this collection—revisioning parenting and tackling intergenerational connections and disruptions.

Abel’s Dad Era (an excerpt of which appeared in BCR in April) blends poetry, memoir, and visual narratives and works, as indicated in the opening, as an epistolary in that it is, at its heart, a letter to Phoenix. By reimagining what it is to be a parent is to create a space to consider those so-called mundane activities and feelings revealed throughout the collection, such as “Sometimes I used to be afraid and now I just feel tired” or “No matter what time it is, you could probably use a nap. / I could probably use a nap.”

There are universal aspects to parenting that are celebrated and given voice to through the book—like parents are tired. The irreverent and charming rest side-by-side as in, “I used to think being a writer was the most significant thing / I could do with my life and now I know / the greatest thing I can do is master the art / of air frying a frozen chicken nugget.”

The shift of what takes precedence when a person becomes a parent is so starkly noted in the above and equally and starkly funny. Abel’s moments of profound grappling with parenting also rest next to the cheeky and the affecting as in “Being a parent is about keeping you alive.” Abel speaks to the mundane, the joyful, and the exhausted elements of parenting with grace, humour, and moments of profound awareness. 

The disruption of the generations, the intergenerational trauma, and the ongoing and persistent aspects of colonization live between each letter of Abel’s book and, at moments, are clearly articulated “… because joy resists the settler consumption of Indigenous narratives.” Here, Abel pauses amid the exploration of being a son, being a father, being a writer to assert Indigenous resistance. It is not a lone note but a recurring melody: “Did you know that all we had to do to arrive here / on the couch in front of our giant flatscreen / was just to survive an attempted genocide.” There is such tangible pleasure in that flatscreen, in that survival, in that moment of father and daughter sitting on a couch just watching television.

As an Indigenous woman and a mother, it is with—perhaps oddly—real joy that I read, recognize, and tangibly understand “To be honest, I do miss your Uncle Jon and I wish that / he was still alive to meet you, but after he started / doing meth every day there was very little of him / left that I could recognize.” Those moments that seem to speak directly to me, to my own experiences as an Indigenous daughter and mother.

Lines, from “The greatest moment I had with my dad was not a real thing” to “Did you know that we are both indebted to the contours of the North Saskatchewan River,” are intensely important and exultant, for there isn’t a shared canon to turn to as an Indigenous parent. I am not so self-centred to suggest this book speaks solely to me, rather Dad Era speaks to the conditions of being Indigenous and to the conditions of being a child and a parent.

The intergenerational disruptions and connects are not separate but work in tandem as experience and as explored in Abel’s latest book, and I think are most aptly and readily spoken in “The thing about celebrating Indigenous joy is that sometimes / people will still ask me to put all my pain on / display even though it’s the joy that keep all this / floating along.” That is to say, the lack that is often prevalent in Indigenous lives due to ongoing and persistent colonization and various other interferences are, as Abel asserts, secondary to “celebrating Indigenous joy.”

I recognize that Dad Era is often advertised as a book that considers the crevice of devastation the world is apparently resting upon; nonetheless, I suggest it is a celebration of joy and a funny book filled with, at times, useful advice—I really wish someone had told me to start saving for my retirement long, long ago. At its core, Abel’s book really is about delight, wonder, and—of course—joy.

Indeed, here is a book that is Indigenous futurity that articulates Indigenous joy as human as part of rather than separate from, as uniquely ours—Indigenous—and universally shared. Here is a book of wonder between a son, his father, his mother and between a father, his daughter, and her mother. A letter of charm, nuance, struggle, humour, love, and affection.

Heather Simeney MacLeod is a Michif (Red River Métis) writer. Her Michif roots on her maternal side can be traced back five generations to the Red River Settlement. Heather’s fifth book, Let the Bees Go Then (a volume of selected and new poems) is coming out this summer with Barbarian Press. She’s an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Visual Arts at Thompson Rivers University and resides on the unceded territory of the Secwépemc Nation with her rambunctious son and her cranky cat. [Editor’s note: Heather MacLeod has also reviewed books by Darrel J. McLeod, Ivan Coyote, Garry Gottfriedson, and Robert Eighteen-Bisang & Elizabeth Miller for BCR.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster