a new year’s eve
Excerpted
Part of the series “Resistance/Words for the Revolution,” inspired by the Idle No More movement.
1
my people are dancing
on Portage and Main
just like they danced there
500 years ago
elders starve for words
settlers refuse to give
pioneers circle their troll wagons
across the internet frontier
injuns! they cry
their arguments fired
with more fear than precision
they don’t understand
Truth is a seed
planted deep
if you want to get it
you have to dig
Published online July 18 2013.
Katherena Vermette is a Metis writer of poetry, fiction and children’s fiction. Her first full length collection of poetry, North End Love Songs, was released in 2012 (J. Gordon Shillingford), and her first children’s storybook series The Seven Teaching Stories, is forthcoming with Portage and Main Press (estimated release 2014). Her work has appeared in several literary magazines and compilations, including Manitoapow — Aboriginal Writing from the Land of Water (Highwater, 2011) and The Exile Book of Native Fiction and Drama (2010).
This piece was published in ‘Poet in the Family,’ the Summer 2013 issue of CV2.
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