WEBVTT

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So something else that
happens in this book

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is connected to work we're doing
at Indigenous Nations Poets.

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And as you may have noticed,
I use Anishinaabemowin

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in some of the poems.

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About a year ago, I launched
an effort with In-Na-Po

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called Language Back.

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And ask me later.

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I'll just tell you more than
you ever wanted to know.

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But it's this really, really
important effort to us.

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And our last retreat was
centered around Language Back.

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And at our retreat, one
of the things we create

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are these beautiful
little poem cards.

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And so my poem card is
excerpted from this book,

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and I will read it to you.

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Akawe.

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A prelude.

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I should say this one thing.

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Language recovery
is no joke, right?

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And language recovery,
for those of you

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who have lost language, who
have suffered linguicide

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in your communities,
whose language

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has been repressed
for various reasons,

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know that speaking itself
is resistance, right?

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And for me, speaking
the language

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is an act of love,
even when I'm faulty.

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Akawe.

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A prelude.

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Between languages is in
the shadow of old losses,

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We adorn ourselves

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Everywhere, careful
words break open,

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They feed us

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Remembrance, like bread

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Songs like bread:

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Wiikwandiwin.

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Inhabited, we whisper,
sort tongue hungers

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This blood caress of
gone an almost melody;

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nooji'ikwewe-nagamon

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Courting song.

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How we yearn for morsels, words,

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Memory tangle of hands

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(K)neading bakwezhigan--

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This dollop of sweetest dough

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A language prisoner's bread.

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This is to hunger

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(bakade)

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This is to break

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(biigoshkaad)

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To speak is to eat

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wiikwandiwin,

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Feast food

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Our jagged stuttering a giveaway

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maada'oonidiwag:

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This is to share.

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[APPLAUSE]

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