I Lost My Talk

In this autobiographical, first-person, four-stanza poem, Joe uses mostly literal, direct, though sometimes unexpected, diction to get across her message. The speaker, also the poet, immediately starts with the problem of losing her “talk” in the first line (Line 1). She uses the word “talk” rather than speech, which suggests a more everyday, conversational style of engaging with others. In the second line, the speaker addresses a general “you,” stating that a group of people different from her has taken away her “talk” (Line 2). In the third line, the speaker clarifies that this all happened when she was young, and even mentions the specific name of the reservation school in Nova Scotia that Joe actually attended in the fourth line. The speaker is an adult reflecting back on childhood experiences that changed her way of being.

In the second stanza, the tone of the poem becomes even more assertive, as the speaker uses the word “snatched” (Line 5), recharacterizing the milder “took away” (Line 2) into a forceful and criminal act—the word “snatch” connotes theft and underhanded opportunism. The next three lines in this stanza use epistrophe, or repetition, at the ends of successive lines. Repeating the phrase “like you” (Lines 6-8), reinforces the speaker’s sense of being trapped in her non-native language: She speaks, thinks, and acts like the aggressor that removed her ability to speak her mother-tongue. It is not just the words the speaker was forced to copy as she lost her own, but her entire way of being has become like “you.” The last line of this stanza makes use of figurative language: In a metaphor, the speaker compares her words to a “scrambled ballad” (Line 9), which suggests that she must straddle her linguistic worlds in a way that makes her “talk” into mishmash. Her words are poetic like a “ballad,” or lyrical song, but they resist proper order, making it challenging for others to comprehend. Someone forced to learn a second language, especially against their will, can often produce a spoken mixture of the two.

In the third stanza, the speaker demonstrates the “scrambled” effect of her two languages. She offers us two different ways to say the same thing: “Two ways I talk / Both ways I say” (Lines 10-11). These lines are superficially synonymous, filled with words that mean similar things: “two” and “both,” “talk” and “say.” But there is a slight difference in the connotation of the completed phrases. “Two ways I talk” is a factual statement that recalls the first stanza’s use of the word “talk”—the speaker’s colloquial self-expression exists in two different dimensions. The second line, however, features more grammatically elevated diction in the word “both”; its verb implies that there is more to come, as “say” usually precedes quoted speech. In the third line of this stanza, the speaker makes it clear that these two ways of speaking are not equal. The second, externally imposed speech is more “powerful” than hers (Line 12). The oppression that was suggested earlier becomes direct in this stanza.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker proposes a solution. Although knowing two languages has not been enough to bridge the gap between two cultures, instead leading to a “scrambled ballad,” the speaker graciously offers to continue merging what has been forced on her by offering her “hand” (Line 13) to the oppressor “you.” This is not just a silent gesture; in the next line, she politely asks to have the time to “find my talk” (Line 14). This relearning of her birth language not only benefits her, but will also benefit the white dominant culture, which she can teach about herself and people like her. The final line of the poem suggests a more give-and-take relationship in the future, with the somewhat equalized power dynamics. This last stanza has a more peaceful tone, getting across a maturing of perspective of all those involved: The speaker has coped with her trauma, and the former oppressor is open to dialogue and cultural exchange.