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