Spotlight: The Feast by Alycia Two Bears

Alycia Two Bears invites you to The Feast. 

Love, life, motherhood, and grief–Alycia Two Bears sinks her teeth into the uncomfortable, exploring Indigenous identities and their intersections with womanhood in this urgent poetry collection. The collection is split into four rounds, representing the rounds of the Sweat Lodge Ceremony and its associated feast foods. Each round focuses on a theme, finishing with the “ceremony behind it all,” that ties her personhood together.

A Two Spirit, mixed-blood Iskwew from Mistawasis Nêhiyawak First Nation, Two Bears weaves traditional teachings into her poetry, using her words as both reflection and resistance–challenging patriarchy and the inequalities that thrive in its shadow. 

As a mother, land-based yoga practitioner, activist, and aspiring midwife, Two Bears write with a voice that demands to be heard. An award-winning poet, writer, and community leader, she beckons you to her table. 

With verse as sweet as honey and as sharp as vinegar, The Feast will unsettle, provoke, and linger–its poems finding a permanent home deep within your bones.

Excerpt

Loving The Mother of Storms

First you hear the winds

Howling In the fields

The city

Your ears

Bare skin

Exposed

Senses heightened

You witness the dark purple

Opaque clouds full of power

Her children, bold thunder

Demand to be heard

Never to be outdone

by their boisterous brothers

The sisters, touch down

Wreaking havoc, splitting trees

Causing wildfires

Soon to be directly overhead

Rolling over the dark greys

Gaining momentum

You cannot lie

How much you love the beauty in her destruction

Of everything that surrounds you

Your skin is not raised because you are wet

Chilled to the bone by the pouring rains

No

You are smiling

Excited

To be so loved by the Mother of Storms

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About the Author

Alycia Two Bears, a mixed-blood iskwew from Mistawasis Nêhiyawak First Nation, calls Mohkinstsis home. Alycia holds degrees in General Studies and Education from the University of Calgary and combines her expertise as a certified yoga instructor with Traditional 2 Spirit Metis-Cree teachings in her Land-Based Yoga practice. A mother of five, she is a passionate advocate for birth sovereignty and aspires to be a midwife. She practices birth as Ceremony, supporting pregnant and birthing bodies and working to ensure accessible, dignified care. She has also co-created the Moon Time Bag initiative to redistribute donated menstrual health products to both houseless and housed kin. Alycia has contributed to publications such as Red Rising Magazine, MBC Magazine, and New Tribe Magazine. Her work often centres on decolonization, mental health, and Two Spirit advocacy. For her work she has received The Advocate for Equality Award from the Calgary Single Mother’s Society, and the USAY Change Makers Award.