WEBVTT

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That rhyme of stars
and scars, oh my god.

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Keep it going for Danielle.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Are you ready?

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OK.

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Our next poet is hydrating.

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[LAUGHTER]

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He's an activist.

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He's a community builder.

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I'm very interested
in this idea--

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I think it's Anne
Waldman's idea--

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of the infrastructural poet.

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Community builders.

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People who make things
happen for other people.

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That's Robert.

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And his poems take the
pulse of the moment

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and transform it into
urgency, as you'll see.

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I'm so excited to
listen to him read.

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Robert Harold Bordeaux is an
enrolled member of the Sicangu

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Lakota Oyate and writer and
activist from Spearfish, South

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Dakota.

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His latest collection
of poems, Prairie Bones,

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is out now from Wiyounkihipi--

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all right, amazing--
Productions.

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Give it up for Robert.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Hau, mitakuyepi.

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Robert Bordeaux emaciyapi.

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Sicaƞgu Lakota

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Oyate hemataŋhaŋ na lehaƞl.

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Hocape Otuƞwahe el wati.

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Caŋte waste nape ciyuzape lo.

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My name is Robert Bordeaux.

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I come from the Sicangu
Lakota people up in--

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currently residing in Rosebud
Reservation in South Dakota.

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And I greet you all
with a good heart.

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So thankful to be here.

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So thankful to follow
such amazing poets.

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I don't want this week to end.

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I wanted to share a quick story
before I dive into my work.

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I was listening to an
elder share a story

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a couple years back.

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He talked often about
how my tribe, my people,

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would send people
in all directions

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historically and
tell them, travel

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as far as you need to go
until you learn something

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to bring home, to
better our nation,

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to make our nation stronger.

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And that's been my
experience here,

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with In-Na-Po and with all
the faculty and the fellows,

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and I'm really excited to
take what I've learned here

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and bring that back home to my
people in He Sapa, in the hills

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up north.

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So I got three pieces
for you guys tonight.

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This first piece is
called Maka Uƞkiksuyapi.

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I wish there was a better
way to start this poem

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other than "I come from a people
shattered by violent hands."

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History tells this
story in different ways.

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I choose to tell it from
the eyes of the dirt,

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the hands of the trees,

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the mouth of my ancestors.

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I call this truth.

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I come from a people
shattered into fragments,

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scattered across
a land that weeps.

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This is both
metaphor and literal.

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What it is not, however, is
an ending or a beginning.

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UƞLakotapi.

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We are Lakota.

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Waċiƞuƞṫaƞkapi.

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We persevere.

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Our fragments,
stories, and songs

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too powerful for colonial
hands to steal away

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slip through colonial fingers,

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fall to the Earth as
seeds ready to root.

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Maka uƞkiksuyapi.

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The land remembers us.

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Su iċaġapi.

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Seeds grow.

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Have you ever witnessed
a child speak Lakota?

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Have you seen the little
ones dance at Wacipi?

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If so, you'll understand that
despite lost, we are not lost.

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We are seeds prayed into
existence by our ancestors,

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sowed in dirt, rooted in
land that remembers our name.

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UƞLakotapi.

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Waċiƞuƞṫaƞkapi.

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Su iċaġapi.

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Maka uƞkiksuyapi.

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Thank you.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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