Kanata: Appropriation or Erasure?
There is tension in this short poem by Joséphine Bacon. Listening and being heard. Speaking or being condemned to silence. “Mute, you have so much to say.” The silence evoked in the poem, to my mind, echoes a set of colonization processes ingrained in the societies of Canada and Québec, within politics and institutions such as schools, the media, healthcare, and child welfare services — processes that impact Indigenous women, in particular. An invitation to talk has been issued by Bacon. But has it been heard?
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