Tiffany Midge - Indigenous Americans - People & Culture - The World
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Tiffany Midge (nation: Lakota; citizenship: USAmerican. 1965)
Go to Tiffany Midge's webita
in Spanish & English at mujerpalabra.net > Conoce a...
"Written in Blood" was published in "Reinventing the Enemy's Language. Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America", edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird.
Written in Blood / Escrito con sangre is included in Sisters. Workshops with Poems - reproduced, recorded and translated with Tiffany Midge's permission
Listen to "Written in Blood" at the Talking People Podcast
Written in Blood
Tiffany Midge
I surrender to Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus.
I confess my crime of breaking into this container of words,
and slaughtering this poem with meta innuendo.
But I needed something. I wanted to gather the dust
Of 84 warriors & 62 women & children. I robbed
From this vault of words, language of the enemy, in hopes
I could capture these people, allow their prayers to
reach Wovoka in the final hour I end this poem.
I wanted to know that I’m not grieving merely from the guilt
of that European blood that separates me from two worlds.
I need to know that I can be allowed my grief.
Sadly I have failed. This 1961 Cardinal edition thesaurus
I depended upon has betrayed me. Betrayed my Indian kin.
With this language there are times I feel I’m betraying myself.
In my search for synonyms for murder, I find Cain,
assassin, barbarian, gunman, brute
hoodlum, killer, executioner, butcher
savage, Apache, redskin.
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