Our 2017 Poetry Contest Honourable Mention.
mother’s tongue
They often ask:
Will you teach your
children your language?
As if it is a weapon I carry.
Of course I will, ensure they are
more fluent than I was. Hope that
they can read and write it too.
Only teaching them english would
be like only giving them white to
paint everything they see. Like only
giving them one way to express
themselves.
English tastes like
empty bullets that were once shot
at us. That are sometimes still
shot at us. I will arm them with
Punjabi because english doesn’t
cut it.
English ends things quickly
cuts it off and out. When someone
dies, in Punjabi, we say they are
complete. That we live in cycles
and the end isn’t empty.
Our endings
are whole and fulfilling. Their
endings are dark and hollow.
I will give my children everything
especially my tongue.
—
“mother’s tongue” won the Honourable Mention in Room‘s 2017 Poetry Contest. Judge Jónína Kirton had this to say about “mother’s tongue”:
The questions asked in this poem left a familiar taste in my mouth. What is lost when “only teaching them English would / be like only giving them white to paint everything they see.” The bitter taste of a language that “tastes like empty bullets.” This poem a promise from mother to child. A sacred promise that the ‘mother’s tongue’ will not be forgotten.
