My name is Bernie Kruchak. I’m a Winnipeg poet and writer. Let me introduce you to Rooster Town Poetry Shed, my personal reconciliation project.
Rooster Town Poetry Shed is a streetside poetry box that displays works by Canadian and international poets while honouring the families of the historical Métis Road Allowance community of Rooster Town, who were forced from their south Winnipeg homes in the 1950s to make way for civic expansion. The Métis community had existed on the fringes of southwest Winnipeg from 1901 to 1959.
The shed is located in my front yard, which is a rooster’s crow away from the final shantytown site. For more information about Rooster Town, check out my website, www.roostertownpoetryshed.ca.
Rooster Town Poetry Shed launched in August, 2025, with an illuminated installation by Jennifer Still, Winnipeg's Poet Laureate. Since then, the shed has showcased poems by Susan Alexander, melanie brannagan frederiksen, Cendrine Marrouat, and others, including a series of successive poems by Melanie Dennis Unrau that demonstrate the poet’s process of writing and illustrating her poetry book, "goose.”
During Truth and Reconciliation Week in September, poems by Indigenous poets, Bethany Whiteknife and Terry Copenace (Kinew Gaabo), were presented. To commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the shed displayed Cree-Métis poet Duncan Mercredi’s poem that bears witness to the 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous children discovered on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021.
I believe reconciliation is essential to a progressive society. I’ve been an Indigenous ally since 1963, the year that the public school in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, was integrated with children from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School. As an 11-year-old, I knew that what my Anishinaabe classmates were enduring before and after school in their residential setting was wrong. These experiences — theirs and mine — have been a guidepost in my allyship ever since.
To help move reconciliation forward, I want to showcase more magnificent and meaningful poetry by Indigenous and Métis poets. If you are an Indigenous or Métis poet living on Turtle Island who would like to display your work in Rooster Town Poetry Shed, I invite you to contact me, and together we can decide how best to display your poetry. Of course, I have one caveat: No pretendians allowed.
Email me at roostertownpoetryshed@gmail.com. Find out more about the shed at www.roostertownpoetryshed.ca. The shed is on Instagram @roostertownpoetry and Facebook @roostertownpoetryshed.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Bernie Kruchak is a writer and poet living on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He retired after 35 years as a professional writer to become a re-emerging poet, taking up the torch of literature he'd dropped on his career path. He is currently working on a series of concrete poems and a chapbook, subdivision: broken burb poems, that shines a light on the pretentiousness of suburbia.
