When Divas Speak in Tongues

By Chezia Strand

When Divas Speak in Tongues is an interlinguistic, intercultural, intergenerational, interrealities concert poetry book that features poetry in English and three indigenous languagesAnishinabe, Tagalog/Filipino, and Fulani/Fulfulde Pulaar. The language of music is delirious. The way between the different worlds of the three poets moves from the forest in Michigan to cities in the Philippines and to the vision of a woman who discovered her essential nature in West Africa. It talks about politics, love, family, and society from points of view that never converge. More than five years in the making, this is an audacious celebration of surviving the impossible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524570033

Chezia Strand

A Washington University and Carnegie-Mellon University graduate, poet Chezia Strand was born and raised in D’Ville in St. Louis but lived mostly in Baltimore. Her writing is a synthesis of intergenerational ideas and spaces around the concept of being human and living in the African Diaspora. She is the editor of the eight-member Diva Squad Poetry Collective Series of which this is the fourth book. Her work in Teaching Jean Toomer’s 1923 Cane and her articles on Caribbean writers Earl Lovelace and Kamau Brathwaite are a part of her theatre work, which includes her original plays.

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Copyright © 2017 by Chezia Thompson. 738905

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920810

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 06/28/2017

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Contents

Section I*

Crooked Trees

Waagaamitigoog*

Halfway Away – Michigan to Argentina*

Aaptaa Waasaa – Michigan dash Argentina*

All of you, enter/ Come in

Bindigeig

Listen all of you, Listen

Bizandamig

Live Live

Bimaadizig

In the Center of the City

Bemidjigoding

Together Between

Maamwi Aabitose

The Date*

Ganagazid*

They Care for One Another

Ganawenimdiwag

A Poem for the Children of the Great Lakes

Z’gii Zhibiiamaag Niijaaisag Chigamigong

One

Bezhig

Two

Niizh

Three

Niswi

Four

Niiwin

Five

Naanan

Six

Ingodwaaswi

Seven

Niizhwaaswi

Eight

Nishaaswi

Nine

Zhaagaaswi

Ten

Midaaswi

Bones

Kaanan

Work

Nokiiwin

Writing Images in Circles

(for Daphne Odjig)

Waanimazinbiigananke

Sweet Water

Ziizibaakwadaaboo

Wind Sound

Bizindaanmaad

Section II

Ant

Langgam

F.O.B. (Fresh off the boat)*

F.O.B. (Kakagaling lang sa barko)

First Ocean

Unang Dagat

Long Live the Pineapple

Mabuhay ang Pinya

FPIC (under the new guidelines)*

FPIC (sa bagong mga katungkulin)

Kapwa-tid/Tribal Conversations

Pinikpikan Recipe*

Wheelbarrow Caloocan: One

Kariton Kaloocan: Una

Run Cypher

Takbo Cypher

Section III

Return to Goree: or the Bride (for the Fulani Prince without kingdom)

Ruttagol Gooree: ko jombere (wattugol mase) (fii pullo alfaajo mo alaa laamateeri)

Blood Marriage

Desal Loondu

Mississippi Psalm - Oshun Returns

Sifoore Misisipi - Oshun Arta

Story Tellers, Reborn

Fillotoobe, Immital (Inde wirniidi den: e Tohono: O’odham/Pima nder Amerik & Yoruba)

The Story of the Man who Knew Himself to be a Man

Fii Gorko fellitunoodo no ngordi

Brothers at War

Hare Singiraabe

African American Woman

Sonnaajo Afriiki-Amerikiijo

The Gambler

Taalol Urboowo

Mississippi Mother (Cahokia Memoirs)

Yumma Misisipi (Maanditande Kahokia)

CALLALOO

CALLALOO

B.B. King Meets His Guitar, Lucille

B.B. King Fottii e Hoddu mun, Lusiiy

Egungun

Egungun (Fulani)

Joan’s Barack Obama Quilt

Waanaare Joan Barack Obama nden

A LIST OF THANKS FROM ALL OF US:

IMAGE%2001.tif

Painted by Thao Le Nguyen (2 years old)

For the Members of Our Tribes

DEAD and LIVING

Who Have Bequeathed Us

The Signature of Survivance:

And for Our Children Now and

Our Children to Come.

IMAGE%2002.tif

Chezia Thompson Cager, Jr. (3 years old)

IMAGE%2003.tif

     Margaret and her mother

Margaret Noodin // Biography

Dr. Margaret Ann Noodin received a Masters in fine Arts in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Linguistics from the University of Minnesota. She is now the Director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education and Assistant Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches Anishinaabemowin. Her published work includes, Weweni: A Collection of Anishinaabe Poetry and Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature. Her work primarily focuses on the recovery and maintenance of Annishinaabe language and literature. Her published work also includes: editing Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki (Queen of the Woods) A Critical Edition of Simon Pokagon 1898 Potowatomo novel published by Michigan State University Press; poems in Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Sovereign Bones-New Native American Writing edited by Eric Gansworth; and Do You Know Me Now? An Anthology of Minnesota Multicultural writings edited by Elisabeth Rosenberg. Grants awarded include: An LSA Instructional Technology New Initiatives Grant 2010, The Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates Program 2009, and The Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching - 2009.

Crooked Trees

*

The Anishinaabe tamed them

bending them carefully

making compasses

of stories folded

of energy visible

an invitation to freedom

in each bright leaf

Waagaamitigoog*

Anishinaabeg gil owaangawi’aawaan

Weweni owaagibizhaawaan

Waawiyebii’gankewaad

Aadisookaanag biskinaawaan

Wilikwiiwin waamdaanaaawaa

Wilkonogewaad ji-wiiwaji’owaad

Enji –waatebagaa tenon

Halfway Away – Michigan to Argentina

*

On the other side of the earth Spring is beginning

lovers give one another opening flowers,

and readers leave books to be found,

on park benches, on busses and in trees.

Here, Fall is unfolding under the full moon

friends are feasting on words stirred into stories

and reminding one another of things they once knew

about the history of blankets and the soft touch of living

Aaptaa Waasaa – Michigan dash Argentina*

Shweyang woyaa’aakiing maajiziigwan

Zaaggaagajig miinaanaadizo saakonewaaskonen,

Gindaasojig boonitoonan mazinaiganan ji-mikaanan

Kitiganpabwaning, chidaabaning, mitigong,

Maampii maajidaagwaaging name moshkine aapkizid

Niijke wag miijinaan ikidowensan dagonigaade dibaajimowinan

Mikwwendaamaadizowaad niibina gego gii wanendawaad

Waaboaan aadisookanan miinwaaezhi-nookamigad bimaadiziwin.

All of you, enter/ Come in

All of you, enter

Come in

A place of Anishinaabemong language

Where Anishinaabemowing is spoken

Where we remember

Where there is remembering

Where we know/read/count

A place of knowing

Where there is love

A place of love

Bindigeig

Bindigeig

Enji-Anishinaabemong

Enji-mmanjimendimying

Enji-gikendaasoying

Enji-zaagi’iding

Listen all of you, Listen

Ideas saved in the heart

To what we know by heart

We dream far in all directions

As we dream in all directions

We tell teaching stories, we sing, we dance in the traditional way

With traditions of stories, song and dance

All the people and animals see it, the light coming

And we recognize the lighting of a new fire

Bizandamig

enendamowinan zhaabwidoonan odeong

bwajgeying waasa kina nikeyaa

aadisokeying, nagamoying, nimiiying ezhi-Anishinabebimaadiziying

kina bimaadizijig miinwa wesii’ig owaabandaanaawaa bidaasigemigog

Live Live

Between the red dawn and the red place where it falls

Between the red dawn and the red sunset

Between the sun (or the month) and the night sun

Between sun and the moon

Between the small spirits and the cannibals

Between the spirits we love and the ones who devour

Between the fog and the clouds you can find your soul

Between the fog and the clouds you can find your soul

Come in, carefully listen, live well

Come in carefully listen, live well

Bimaadizig

Nisawayi’iing misko-biidaabang idash ni misko-pangishimag

Nisawayi’iing giizis idash ni dibiki’giizis

Nisawayi’ing manidoog idash wiindigoog

Nisawayi’iing awang idash ankwadong mii ji-mikaman gdo’ojichaakam

Bindigeig, wewnii bizindamig, minobimaadizig

In the Center of the City

In the center of the city

where grandmamas are mamas

there is government cheese

and families of bees speaking

dance in the hives.

In the center of the rez

where everyone is a cousin

there is still smoke in the lungs

but some hope for the words

rushing out.

In the center of the ocean