WEBVTT

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The next thing I want
to read from the book

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is a series of three poems.

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I've been working on
a process that I've

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kind of deemed sui-translations,
translations for the South.

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And what I was doing was
taking traditional Mohawk songs

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and chants and translating them
from the Mohawk into English,

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and then after doing
a direct translation,

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writing a poem based
on that translation.

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And my point in doing
these translations

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for myself was that part
of the oral tradition

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that most people don't recognize
or that anthropologists often

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overlooked was that
the oral tradition

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has to change in order
to create relevancy.

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So I looked at three songs that
would normally have nothing

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to do with my life unless I
was able to translate them

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into something that did.

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So I chose a canoe song, which
was basically a work song

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that people sang while paddling,
a mosquito song that you sang

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when there are mosquitoes
that were bothering you,

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which often happens in New York
State, and a cornbread song.

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So the way they're
set up and the way

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I'll read them is I'll
read them in Mohawk first,

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then the literal
translation, then the poem

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that came from them.

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"Three Translations from
the Mohawk: Canoe Song."

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Teiohonwa:ka ne'ni akhonwe:ia. Kon'tatieshon iohnekotatie.
Wakkawehatie, wakkawehatie. 

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"The canoe is very fast.

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It is mine.

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All day I hit the water, I
paddle along, I paddle along.

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I'm the hull, rapid
against your stream,

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birch beneath the rib
circumnavigating your body.

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Endless propeller of my arm as
it circles to find the flow,

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I move this way against
you, I move this way."

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"Mosquito Song."

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Okariata:ne tahohotharatie. 
Tahsakohroria:ne ne tsi niho:ten.

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Ne se aonha:a thorihwaka:ion. 
Ne se aonha:a thorihwaka:ion.

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"The mosquito is
bringing a message.

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He comes to tell
us how poor he is.

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In truth, he is repetitive and
brings the same old message."

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It's actually my
favorite song and I think

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it's odd that we have a
song about mosquitoes, but--

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"A voice returns to tell these
things of unencumbered arms,

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returns to remind me
in truth I am alone,

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sleeping through the din of
solitude's stinging messenger."

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"Cornbread song."

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Kana'tahrokhon:we teiothwe'non:ni
Ne se ni:'i kwa wake:kahs.

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Kana'tahrokhon:we teiothwe'non:ni.
Onkwehon:we ronon:ni. 

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"This cornbread is
round, I like it.

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This cornbread is round,
Indian people form it.

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Circular we move to
create the seminal form,

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pleasured but saddened,
creating a circle only.

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The principle for people to give
it form, lamenting we simply

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lay."

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