in this thesis, utilizing the works of contemporary post-colonial critics and authors, i argue that poetry is a medium through which aboriginal women can reclaim control over the construction of aboriginal female identities. i also argue that language has played an important role in the history of colonization. firstly as a venue in which the colonizers could construct a perception of the world in which an ideological subjugation of indigenous peoples is not only appropriate, but necessary. second, as a venue in which indigenous writers can address the disconnectedness of the colonially constructed reality, and, lastly, as a space in which native writers can reconstruct history, the world, and aboriginal identity according to their own multi-cultural and individual perspectives. through close readings of poetry by three aboriginal women in canada, i argue that each poet’s active engagement with the socially constructed relationship between signifiers and signifieds allows them to re-codify the english language in ways that accommodate their own multi-cultural and individual perspectives.