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Last Modified: October 27, 2023
Feature Image for September 2023 Sunday Short: Sunday Shorts is written in white text on a dark teal background. To the left of the text is the cover for The Polyglot Issue 11.
Sunday Shorts: The Polyglot

This month, we celebrate a summer in which the Read Alberta Magazines Tab finally went live on the website. Here’s to a fruitful collaboration with our friends and colleagues in magazine publishing. These poems first appeared in The Polyglot 11.

Valiz Manman’m
by Medgine Mathurin

 Inside my mother’s valiz marron is a secret corner pocket

Inside the secret corner pocket is a notepad-shaped rolodex

Inside the notepad-shaped rolodex is a deadline, a lifeline

Inside the deadline is an oath

Inside the oath is a promise to herself

Pou toujou tounnen lakay

 

éloge pour ma grand-mère Danaïse
by Medgine Mathurin

M’sé

je suis

Pitit fi Merilonne

la petite fille de madame Merilonne Danaïse Rochema Mathurin

née à Plaisance du Sud

ayant des joues aussi hautes que les collines qu’elle prénomme lakay

sans crier gare, elle souriait.

Elle me montrait le trésor qui enrobait l’une de ses dents.

à chaque bout, des cratères gravaient ses joues

c’était une mine d’or qui ne parlait que le créole

à voix autant éraillée que douce tandis que

la mienne, n’était que traînante qui s’efforçait de retrouver la voie vers sa racine

 

ça fait trop longtemps

j’ai honte de l’admettre –

Elle nous attendait et je le savais

 

nous attendions un moment plus opportun qu’un tremblement de terre ou autres catastrophes
pour prendre vol

mais la prudence nous a engourdis

 

Yo di’m se diaspora

but I am her granddaughter

chercheuse de mots haïtiens

 

Li te toujou mandé pou nou

Li te toujou vle wè nou

Mwen te envi we’l

Mwen te swete konnen kiles ou te ye

 

ma chère grand-mère

je veux te dire je t’aime

en mots propres et certains

mais je te parle à l’imparfait

malgré le passé composé

j’espère un jour te lui dire en voie ferme et assurée

je t’aimerai toujours au futur simple

 

KEIKITSE
​by Lebo Disele

Keikitse. Mma Sebopiwa. Nkuku.

Dumela! Ke a go dumedisa.

Mme tota ga ke go dumedise ke a lela.

Selelo se segolo ke gore Keikitse!

Diphuka! Mosadi yo montle,

A tshola bana ba bantle!

Kgarebe ya ga Nnete, ya go gola le BaKaa.

Ba re ha o ne o tsene sekole o ka bo o dirile hisetori.

Hisetori ke raya ditsô ka o di itse ka botlalo.

Ntlhabele leinane, Nkuku.

Mpolele bo “gatwe e rile.”

Leinane ke raya o ntlotlela.

Ntlotlele ka ditlholego tsa Botswana—

Tsa baTlokwa, baKwena, baNgwato, baKgatla.

Ga ke itse polelo ya boMatsalaago,

Ya baKaa, ba tshaba ntwa, ba thula tshipi.

Heela Nkuku!

Ka re ntlhabele leinane!

Ka re mpolele bo “gatwe e rile.”

Ka re leinane ke raya o ntlotlela!

Ntlotlele ka boo rra Motshidisi,

baNgwato ba tlholego ya boKwena.

Ba re ‘ne ba sia eng ko Kweneng?

Ke eng ba bangwe ba agile ko Serowe

ba bangwe ba nna ko Palapye?

Nkuku, ntlhabele leinane.

Mpolele bo, “gatwe e rile.”

Leinane ke raya o ntlotlela.

Ntlotlele ka botshelo jwa gago,

Le botshelo jwa ga mmago, le mmaagwe mmago,

le mmaagwe mmaagwe mmaagwe mmago

Ke batla go itse ka bommaarona.

Ka losika la tshadi.

Nkuku, ka re ntlhabele leinane.

Mpolele bo “gatwe e rile.”

Leinane ke raya o ntlotlela.

Ka re ntlotlele ka botshelo jwa gago.

O nkisitse sekoleng o re ke ye go ithuta,

oa lebala gore rona ga re a kwalwa mo dibukeng.

Gore rona re morahe oo lebetsweng.

Ke ile sekoleng ka ithuta seesemane,

boemong jwa gore ke ithute teme ya gago.

Nkuku, ntlhabele leinane.

Mpolele bo “gatwe e rile.”

Leinane ke raya o ntlotlela.

Gore e tle e re kamoso

le nna ka bo ke bolelela bana ba bana

le bana ba bana ba bana ba bana ba gago.

Gore ba tle ba go itse,

Gore ba tle ba nkitse.

Ntlhabele leinane, Nkuku

Le nna ke tle ke ikitse.

 

KEIKITSE
by Lebo Disele

Keikitse. Mma Sebopiwa. Grandma. Hello!

I am told you could have been a historian,

that hidden behind the veil of your low-hanging headscarf is a long memory of what used to be.

So, Grandma, tell me a story…

Tell me the history of Botswana,

of the Tlokwa, the Ngwato, the Kgatla.

I don’t know the story of the BaKaa,

and how they came to be in this place.

Grandma, tell me a story…

Tell me the story of the Motshidisis,

who came from Kweneng to settle in gaMmangwato,

whose children make home in Serowe and Palapye.

Grandma, tell me a story…

Tell me the story of how you came to be in this place.

Tell me the story of your mother, and her mother,

and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother.

Tell me the story of the women who came before me.

Grandma, I said tell me a story.

Tell me the story of how I came to be in this place.

Tell me our herstory,

the histories that are not written about in books,

or taught in schools.

The forgotten histories.

I went to school and learned to speak

the Queen’s English

but no one taught me to speak in your tongue.

Grandma, tell me a story.

Tell me the story of the women who came before me,

so I can tell your great grandchildren,

and their children, and their children’s children.

So we, too, can know ourselves.

Grandma, tell me a story,

so I, too, can know myself.

—♦—

Headshot of Medgine Mathurin. She is looking at the camera and her hand is resting against her face. Medgine Mathurin is a Haitian-born spoken word artist and patient advocate raised in Calgary and currently based in Edmonton. For Medgine, the love of language and the alchemy of words are second nature. Her multilingual upbringing (French, Haitian Creole, English) not only prompted her to begin experimenting with the potential and magic of language, but also naturally compelled her into a deep love of poetry. Her work has been featured on CBC, Global TV, SkirtsAfire Festival, and the Edmonton Poetry Festival. She was selected as a participant in the 2022 Mentorship Program with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and recently completed her role as mentor with the 2022 Horizons Writers Circle Program, a writing mentorship program for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC), ESL, and underrepresented writers living in Edmonton. To discover more of Medgine’s work, visit www.medgine.ca and connect with her on Instagram @medginespeaks.

Photo of Lebo Disele sitting in the grass and looking up at the sky. Her chin rests on her hands, which are clasped together. Lebo Disele is a theatre-maker with a focus in movement, acting, directing, and dramaturgy. She was the artistic associate at Mile Zero Dance for Winter 2022 and a part of the Citadel’s RBC Horizon Emerging Artists Program’s 2021 cohort. She recently curated Site/Sight/Place for the Mile Zero Dance mid-winter salon. Select performance credits include The Wolves (The Maggie Tree/Citadel), Breaking Ground (Mile Zero Dance), The Space Between (NextFest, 2021; Expanse Festival, 2022), “Radical Imagination” in Brandon Wint’s Freedom Journal: Antidotes to Violence (2022), All That Binds Us (Azimuth Theatre, 2020), and What (Black) Life Requires (Expanse Festival, 2018). Lebo locates her work within the genre of physical theatre, focusing on interdisciplinary collective creation.