Poet Mahlikah Awe:ri has a suggestion for reconciliation: don't speak

For our latest iteration, we bring together four Indigenous female poets to speak their truth in the sixth edition of the CBC Arts series Poetic License. Watch previous performances now and read Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml'ga't Saqama'sgw's poem below.

When it comes to Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty, Afro-Indigenous (Kanien'kéhà:ka, Mi'kmaw) artist Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml'ga't Saqama'sgw is done debating. In this poem entitled DON'T SPEAK, Awe:ri's colonial critique is direct and biting with lines like "you buried our stories like you buried our children" — yet she still manages to invite reconciliation and healing.

Awe:ri started writing the poem in 2018 for the Louder than a Bomb Toronto Slam Finals, but its intentions shifted when her mentor Cree elder Vern Harper passed away before it was finished.

An artist with a long resume, this Saturday she crosses another accomplishment off of her bucket list as she takes to the stage as a TED Talk speaker at TEDxDelthorneWomen:Revolutionize. 

Watch Awe:ri perform DON'T SPEAK at the Humber River in the video above and follow her at @mahlikah_aweri.

DON'T SPEAK

by Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml'ga't Saqama'sgw
Do you speak on this land?
This is Indigenous Land, do you speak
Do you speak on this land?
This is Our Home On Native Land, do you speak
Do you speak on this land?
This is stolen land, occupied land, land under siege
Do you speak
Do you speak, foot to ground above our burial mounds, do you speak
Do you speak, broken treaties, broken promises, do you speak
Do you speak, white noise, static, so sterile
It is sterilizing the natural blood flow of our blood memory
Like receding ice-caps
From Oceans
To Lakes
To Rivers
To Streams
To Brooks
Do you speak
Or do you leak
False truths
Like pipelines built in 1952
Spewing toxins so poisonous
It's altering our social consciousness
Do you speak
NAH
YOU JUST TALK A WHOLE BUNCH OF SHHHH...
AND FOR CENTURIES AND CENTURIES
YOU BEEN FERTILIZING IT
Today I am not gonna speak
I am gonna teach
I am not gonna speak
I am gonna preach
I am not gonna speak
I am gonna reach
Back
7 Generations into my ancestral legacy
Cuz I come from a people who don't speak
We are speak
We be that crazy sexy kool speak
That got you on that tee pee creep
Trying to appropriate
What we did originate

You see our stories are encased in the plates
Of a turtle's shell
That's why we are the backbone of this Nation
Our stories are prophecies foretold
That's how we have withstood more than 500 years of colonial domination
Our stories are forged and femifested
Through light, sound, and story
Not a personification of egotistical patriarchal glory
Our stories are an act of sovereignty
A reclamation of space
Disrupting White Privilege
Dismantling Systemic Hate
Our stories inflate
Our lungs
With language, laughter, and love
Language, laughter, and love
So that we don't suffocate
You buried our stories
Like you buried our children
Forgetting they were seeds
Our ancestor's promise
Our elder's dreams
Our stories are the legacy we leave
Chapters sung and drummed into oral reality
Like the weaving of our wampum
Our syllabics etched in granite
And our souls wrapped
In ancient birch bark scrolls
Our stories are an act of creation
Mother Earth's gestation
That's why we rise from the root
Destined to bloom truth

Our stories never die
I said, our stories never die
When we came into this existence
We were already gifted with our narrative
So when we transition to Karonhià:ke
The Place In The Sky
We know someone will inherit them

So, I ask you again
Do you speak on this land?
This is Indigenous Land,
Our Home On Native Land
Do you speak?
Do you speak on this land?
This is stolen land, occupied land, land under siege
Do you speak?
Cuz the next time we meet
DON'T SPEAK
Just listen
And maybe
Just maybe
I will share
My story

Watch more Poetic License.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.