How Does Rita Joe Build the Poem’s Meaning?

Rita Joe builds the poem's meaning by making a movement from a place of loss to one of hope. She initiates the poem with the blunt address, "I lost my talk / The talk you took away." This sets the stage for the rest of the poem, where she details with specific examples the ways her voice, her culture, and her sense of self were stripped from her as a young girl. The most striking is the phrase "The talk you took away" because it shifts the fault to the oppressive system that tried to take her identity away.



As the poem develops, Joe concludes the consequences of such a loss: "I speak like you / I think like you / I create like you." Herein, she brings into view how she has been obliged to borrow the very language and culture of the colonizers. She reiterates "like you" to draw out the absolute manner in which she has been made to adapt to a life that does not come naturally.


But the poem does not end in despair. In the latter part of the poem, Joe wants to "find my talk," and she extends a gentle hand, pleading for an opportunity to teach about herself. This turn from loss to hope is important to establish the poem's theme of resilience and, perhaps, the potential for healing through comprehension and restoration of culture.


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