cmns 150 Sharon
Sunday, 3 December 2017
Friday, 24 November 2017
Thursday, 2 November 2017
In the
summer of 2017, I took class Engl 161 Literary Genres. Poetry, Drama and Short
Stories. This is poetry by a Cree poet. It is said with a First Nations accent
and some slang First Nations choice of words.
Louise
Bernice Half
(1953 - )
My
Ledders
(1994)
dear pope
i no, i no,
you tired of my ledders
i couldn’t
let dis one go
i dought you
could do somedin ‘bout it.
5
years ago you stopped no khom and nimos o m1
from prayin
in da sweatlodge and sundance,
drummin,
singin, and dancing.
you even
stopped dem from Indian speakin
and
storydellin.
10
well you must have some kind of bower
cuz da
govment sure listen.
well, pope
last night
on DV
i watched
some whitemen
15 sweat in da lodge, and at
dinner dime
on da radio
I heard dat
man dell us
dat some
darafist was havin a retreat
and to
register.
20
what dat mean, I not sure
anyway he is
buildin’ a sweatlodge.
i never hear
anybody before on da radio
dell da
whole world dat.
I sure
surprise and kinda made me mad.
25
I wonder if you could dell da govment
to make dem
laws dat stop dat
whiteman
from dakin our isistawina2
cuz I dell
you pope
I don’t dink
you like it
30 If I dook you
gold cup and
wine
pass it
‘round our circles
1 My
grandmother and my grandfather.
2 A
word that can have deep, sacred implications, but essentially meaning customs,
rites or beliefs.
cuz I don’t
have you drainin
from doze
schools.
35 i haven’t married you jeesuz
and I don’t
kneel to him,
cuz he ain’t
my god.
Dese men,
pope, don’t know what
Tobacco
mean, what suffer mean,
40 alls dey no is you jeesuza die for dem
dey don’t
know what fastin’ mean
dey jist
date and gobble our ma totsa n3
As if dey
own it.
dey don’t
know what it mean to dake
45 from da earth and give somedin’ back
I so dired
of all dis kimoti,4 pope
deach your
children.
eat your
jeesuz body.
drink his
blood.
50 dell dem to go back to dere own deachings,
pope.
1 My
grandmother and my grandfather.
2 A word
that can have deep, sacred implications, but essentially meaning customs, rites
or beliefs.
3
Sweat lodges.
4 Theft
My Ledders - Draft Thesis
What is the
poem about?
·
The poem is about the speakers’ anger toward the
pope because she feels the pope has power over the gov’t for stealing the
cultural practises and language while whitemen who stole them begin using them
as their own.
Why?
·
she wrote several times and didn’t feel heard.
·
She wanted the pope to know he stopped her
grandparents from living and speaking their culture and language
·
She felt the pope had more power than the gov’t
because the religion in residential schools took supreme power over everything
that was known to First Nations
Why did the
writer write the poem as she did?
·
She wanted to express to the pope, how she was
still hanging on to her language
·
She wrote using consonance (ds) broken Cree
because she was angry toward the pope for banning their Cree language, she used
heavy Cree/English pronunciation of words (using d sound for t or th)
·
She wanted the pope to know they are stealing
the sweatlodge and using it for whiteman therapy parallel to First Nations
taking wine (communion) and passing it around the circles
Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Hill_Audio Assignment
Hill_Sparklelily Jewels
Photography Assignment CMNS150
Sparklelily Jewellery
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM_21L0ly5RmyiyLU2-ALiT0eh4LzjYYcrWvrt1x3nbqA_TrYkxaiisC5tFvupALg?key=bmgtZGxGMmNlR3p1Z3dXdGlGNmJkdjhkTVVab0h3
Sunday, 8 October 2017
Hill_Turkle
Sharon Hill
CMNS 150
Sherri Turkle, a psychologist appears on a
Ted Talk of what technology is doing to society. Texting, emailing and social
media are replacing real life conversations and connecting with people in a
real way. It made me look at my own life and consider the real information she
shared about having human relationships. Interestingly she shared how
technology creates an illusion that we think we are connecting with people by
having conversations digitally. But by actually having real conversations we
learn about ourselves and other people. Technology provides good information. But
we need to know how and when to use it.
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