Synthesis/Regeneration 5   (Winter 1993)

I Lost My Talk           

by Rita Joe            

I lost my talk
The talk you took away.
When I was a little girl
At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:
I speak like you
I think like you
I create like you
The scrambled ballad, about my world.

Two ways I talk
Both ways I say,
Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,
Let me find my talk
So I can teach you about me.

(Poem by Rita Joe reprinted with kind permission of Rita Joe and Canadian Woman Studies: 1989, Canadian Woman Studies 10, 2&3, p. 28.