Canadian Feedback

Feedback is great motivator. Feedback helps a writer make determinations about what they are doing and what is working in presentation. I read two peices of writing yesterday, January 17, for the reading at Audrey's Book Store. One was a new peice I have been working on which I will share here, and the other was an older peice I chose to submit for the Stroll of Poets Anthology. The feedback I received from the audience was very positive on the work I put into research and structure. Another key peice of presentation is timing or flow, timing doesn't factor in too much with writing but with reading it is paramount to reaching the audience and getting the point of your peice across to the audience.

The point of this particular peice is how I feel about who I am in the time and place I am living. I hope you enjoy.

Identity

I am Canadian.
I am … Canadian … but not Canadien.
Anglophone … not Francophone.
Though I can respect the value in the struggle that created a bilingual nation.
Bilingual, a word that barely covers the chatter in Canadian streets these days.
The chatter that starts as far back as when this … all this was The Dominion,
The Dominion of Canada. Upper Canada, Red Serge, Commonwealth.
I am Canadian.
I thank my great grandfather for bravely endeavouring to leave his homeland.
I thank him for leaving a famine ravaged Ukraine with his young family in tow.
Young children, expectant wife, birth of a nation and birth of a new son
all tied to immigrant hopes in the new promised land when it was all
the north of the Americas.
I thank young Jacques Cartier in his struggles to communicate with the young Iroquois.
I thank him for the name of this village “Ka na ta”.
Kanata in reference to Satacona and Hocelaga, later to be Quebec and Montreal.
I am Canadian … claimed by English, named by French,
taken from the Upper Nation tribes and upheld by a British Parliamentary system.
I am the promised land before it was promised part and parcel to immigrant farmers.
Planters. Builders of the many colonies.
Before it was colonized, before allegiances were made and broken by feuding parties.
I am Canadian.
I am here to lay claim on the soils once battled for and traded on by rival tribes.
Canadians; Mikmaq, Abinaki, Ojibway, Iroquis, Cree, Tsimshan, Algonquin.
Canadians; Haida, Danezee, Sarsee, Huron, Blackfoot, Athabaskan, Salishan …
I know I have missed some names.
Names of forgotten tribal nations; where once were many and now are few.
The face of our great nation is ever changing.
We here now are a few Canadians.
A few things I have, a few Canadian things I can have…
Bannock, fry bread, dried meat, canoe, Ogopogo and Sasquatch.
BC wine, Alberta beef, Saskatoon berry pie.
Manitoba Muk luks, Poutine, maple syrup, Newfoundland Skreetch and Atlantic lobster.
I am Canadian.
My country has always ended its own battles. Never tried to take more than its share.
Never aimed to build an empire.
We are but one nation. One nation.
Known for the promise of peace. The promise of accord for one and all shore to shining shore.
Strong and free.
I am Canadian.
I wear a toque and a parka and my old blanket is from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
I am Canadian.
My neighbours are Canadians.
Descendant from United Empire Loyalists, draft dodgers, freedom seekers from the south.
Descendants from boat people, Vietnamese refugees, Hong Kong immigrants,
Afghanis, Georgians, Lebanese, Turks, Romans.
Descendants from Great Britain, Scotland, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Poland, Ukraine.
I know I have missed some names,
where once were few now are many.
My neighbours are Canadians.
Colourful montage, mosaic, collage, multicultural patchwork. It works.
My neighbours are Canadians.
Canadians.
It all fits. This is who I am, who I aim to be, who we all have aspired to say we are.
I am Canadian.

Peace.
Christine