Two Poems

Gwen Benaway

Akii

give me the land,
call her by her name,

Akii, meaning dirt
or soil or molecules.

ohmamaaminaan,
mother of us all,

she lives in marrow,
along the inner line

of shoreline I carry
in the eye’s inseam.

let me be hers,
daughter of everything

I have loved,
lakes and spruce

and mountains
under blackness.

say I belong here,
this place, now—

and for every time
they misgender me

by the wrong pronouns
or the old name,

let her answer for me:
Gaawiin, nidanis

no, my daughter
is the same woman

I made her
at birth.



Awus Awus

awus awus—
every day walking by people

who stare
or laugh,

call me names,
threaten this body.

they’re confused
by my vintage dresses

and my 5 o’clock shadow

the eyeliner, mascara rimmed
eyes in blue highlight

awus awus—
every day I say

get back, go away
these dogs

that follow me,
yes it’s true

I look like a man
in a dress in heels

it upsets them,
I know I won’t be

invisible like before
they’re hunting me

every place I go,
I ask myself

is it safe
it never is

just these words,
an insult in Ojibwe

speak to a human
like a begging dog

awus awus—
if my gookum asks

why I’m so rude
I’ll tell her

“they started it”.
Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) is the third most spoken Indigenous language in Canada—we capitalize Indigenous like other proper nouns such as British, American, or Canadian because we are distinct nations. Anishinaabemowin is not a standardized language and encompasses many regional and community specific differences in spelling, pronunciation, and structure. It is widely spoken in the area around the Great Lakes as well as in parts of Manitoba, Quebec, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Michigan. As a second-language learner of my ancestral tongue, I use Anishinaabemowin only when English cannot appropriately translate a cultural conception or lacks sufficient depth to convey the meaning required. One word in Anishinaabemowin has more imagery and meaning than a paragraph of English. I cannot imagine ever writing an entire poem in Anishinaabemowin, regardless of my fluency level, but I love the complexity of blending English and Anishinaabemowin together. They often work against each other, a push-and-pull tension and dialogue that mirrors the reality of Canadian society.

Gwen Benaway is of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. Her first collection of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead, was published in 2013, and her second collection of poetry, Passage, is forthcoming from Kegedonce Press in Fall 2016. An emerging Two-Spirited Trans poet, she has been described as the spiritual love child of Thomson Highway and Anne Sexton. In 2015, she was the recipient of the inaugural Speaker’s Book Award for a Young Author, and in 2016 she received a Dayne Ogilvie Honour of Distinction for LGBT Emerging Writers from the Writer's Trust of Canada. Her work has been published and anthologized internationally.