Welcome to Ojibwe.net’s Gijigijigaaneshiinh Gikendaan (What the Chickadee Knows) home. The book is a collection of poems in Anishinaabemowin and English by Margaret Noodin. The book can be purchased from Wayne State University Press.

Whether we hear giji-giji-gaane-shii-shii or chick-a-dee-dee-dee depends on how we have been taught to listen. Our world is shaped by the sounds around us and the filter we use to turn thoughts into words. The lines and images in this book were written first in Anishinaabemowin and then in English. They are an attempt to hear and describe the world according to an Anishinaabe worldview. They celebrate the network of relations along the shores of Michigami, the system of lakes known also as the sweetwater sea.