In the Belly of a Laughing God: Humour and Irony in Native Women's Poetry by Jennifer Andrews, professor in the Department of English at the University of New Brunswick, offers critical analysis of the works of eight cotemporary women poets. Joy Harjo, Jeannette Armstrong, Kimberly Blaeser, Louise Halfe, Diane Glancy, Marilyn Dumont, Wendy Rose, and Marie Annharte Baker use humour and irony within their poetry and the author sees their works as containing five themes: religious transformations; generic transformations; history, memory, and the nation; photography and representational visibility; and land and the significance of home. The unique feature of this book is the author's original interviews with each poet allowing the voices of these outstanding women writers to resonate and address issues of identity, history, memory, and place. The book contains an extensive bibliography and detailed index.
