I Lost My Talk

“Poem 6” by Rita Joe (1978)

In this poem from Joe’s first collection, an adult teacher asks the first-person speaker who she is, as classmates laugh at her. This poem, like “I Lost My Talk,” incorporates an educational environment, which provided abuse rather than solace during Joe’s formative years. However, both poems end on a positive note. Just as the speaker of “I Lost My Talk” extends her hand to make peace and reclaim power, this poem confirms the speaker’s confidence for future success, which turned out to be true for the poet: “And I will relate wonders to my people” (Line 12).

“Poem 14” by Rita Joe (1978)

This poem, also from the same collections as “Poem 6,” elevates the Indigenous culture that the speaker desperately wants to share with others in “I Lost My Talk.” She describes the land as well as the cycle of life; the poem ends by proclaiming that the life of her culture will carry on from generation to generation: “We are no more, / Except we leave / A heritage that never dies” (Lines 20-22).

“When Roots Are Exposed” by Esther Belin (1999)

This poem by Navajo writer Esther Belin is interested in the relationship between written and spoken traditions. The speaker discusses the English language as “mechanical ligaments / binding spirit” (Lines 26-27). Just as in “I Lost My Talk,” when the speaker feels only able to speak in a mixed-up way when her first language mixes with the English imposed upon her, so too does Belin reject using English as a vehicle for Indigenous culture: “I cannot classify this thought as a typewritten symbol” (Line 30).

“poem to be read from right to left” Marwa Helal (2016)

In this poem, Egyptian poet Marwan Helal created a poetic form that uses English words, but asks readers to read as Arabic readers would, from right to left. Like Joe, Helal tackles the issue of multilingualism, particularly in a place that favors a speaker’s secondary over their primary language. In the second stanza, Helal complains about how tiring it is to count in English, a reference similar to Joe’s commentary on her “scrambled ballad” in “I Lost My Talk” (Line 9).

“How English Came to Me” by Janel Paneda (2021)

In her poem from the Lineage of Rain collection, multilingual poet Janel Paneda talks of her experiences learning English, personifying English as an invading force replacing her native Spanish: “English was patient because it knew / it would win in this country” (Lines 16-17). The poet’s autobiographical experiences with one language and culture replacing another are congruent to Joe’s experiences. Paneda ends the poem by describing still having to sometimes write in Spanish and then rewrite in English. While the tone of this ending is different from Joe’s optimistic one about teaching someone else her language, both show authors and speakers of the poems trying to reclaim their cultural identity.