Personal and Social Responsibility: Poem: "I Lost My Talk"

Personal and Social Responsibility

I Lost my Talk (1979) by Rita Joe.

I lost my talk
The talk you took away.
When I was a little girl
At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:
I speak like you
I think like you
I create like you
The scrambled ballad, about my world.

Two ways I talk
Both ways I say,
Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,
Let me find my talk
So I can teach you about me.

(Poem by Rita Joe reprinted with kind permission of Rita Joe and Canadian Woman Studies: 1989, Canadian Woman Studies 10, 2&3, p. 28).