Professor gives a voice to Canadian Indigenous poet

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 word.

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.

These haunting words come from Mi’kmaw poet Rita Joe, who passed away in her home community of Eskasoni in 2007. During a recent keynote lecture, Songs of Hope from a Mi’kmaw Community, by Faculty of Arts and Science Professor Gordon E. Smith (Dan School of Drama and Music) at the Canadian University Music Society conference at Acadia University situated on Mi’kmaki, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq, he talked about Rita Joe and the impact of her poetry, especially in the seven years since the publication of the federal government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report.

Rita Joe lived in the residential school at Shubenacadie, located in mainland Nova Scotia, for four years in the 1940s.

Along with discussing the poem, Dr. Smith focused on the genesis of the multi-media composition based on I Lost My Talk commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2016. Part of a larger work called Life Reflected, this composition has received multiple performances in various locations including in Rita’s home community of Eskasoni in May 2017.

“This project embodies the spirit of hope,” he says. “There is so much despair and negativity. This is what Rita wanted. To bring hope.”

Each of the four compositions that are part of the National Arts Centre Life Reflected series is  a musical portrait of an outstanding Canadian woman: Rita Joe, Roberta Bondar, Alice Munro, and Amanda Todd.

“Alexander Shelley was appointed the new music director of the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra in 2016,” Dr. Smith explains. “He commissioned Life Reflected and I Lost My Talk is part of that larger composition. This was a groundbreaking initiative, the NAC Orchestra working with an Indigenous community. The entire orchestra travelled to Eskasoni and performed “I Lost My Talk” in a hockey arena on a specially structed stage with the narrator for the poem, with the film screen with visual components behind”

Dr. Smith, who has studied Mi’kmaw music culture for 30 years, worked with Rita Joe for 15 years before her death. He now works closely with her youngest daughter, Ann Joe, who cared for her mother during her battle with Parkinson’s Disease and has become a spokesperson for her mother’s legacy. Their collaborative research is focused on tracing the emergent impact of Rita Joe’s words and music within creative and educational contexts, emphasizing the importance of Indigenous voices and community participation.

“The Eskasoni performance of I Lost My Talk was simply amazing,” he says. “To see this intersection between the orchestra and Indigenous people and the respect between all the people. It was incredible. This was a milestone and up there with the best we hope for coming out of the TRC.”

Watch the performance of I Lost My Talk as it was performed in Eskasoni by the NAC Orchestra.