Welcome to Poetry Walks! A podcast that brings poems from our hearts to your ears. Center yourself through imaginative and calming poems as Arlo guides you through this moment. Step within through these relaxing poems that question existence, friendship, activism, love, and self-worth. Poetry Walks is a Radio Show currently hosted with 90mil Collective. This episode features words by Ada Limón. You can find her work most places you get book. If you’re in Berlin, I recommend some of these spaces:
Among others.
Sounding Kinship is THIS FRIDAY 19HR at Nourished Collective! I hope to see you there.
Land Acknowledgement:
As I am writing this, my tax dollars are aiding and abetting the Indigenous eradication project in Palestine of the Palestinian people. Land acknowledgement and scars, traumas, and violence related to colonialism is not a far away place. It is here and it is now. It is our work — as scholars, doctors, practitioners, artists, educators, care givers, siblings, friends, and lovers — to activate, organize, advocate. It is our work to name what wants to be forgotten, discarded, and reappropriated.
In Germany, some chose to acknowledge the germanic tribes on the land in which my two feet are planted. However, the Semitones, Burgundians, Hevelli, and Sprevane participated in feudalism which later extended to colonialization. To do so, is to in Philip J. Deloris’ words “play Indian” or legitimize “pretendians”. To uplift feudalists is antithetical to a decolonial framework. That is to say, this is not the same struggle. The idea of First Nations in Germany propagated notions of supremacy and later led to acts of genocide in name of “protect(ing) the land”. I refuse to perpetuate this narrative. Thus, the First Nations of Germany cannot be equated and recognized in the same ways that the First Nations and Ancestors of Turtle Island.
In the same breath, I am forever in debt to the lands and waterways and beings that shaped me, namely, on Mohican, Osage, and Muskogee Creek Territories. This land acknowledgement does not serve to perpetuate the feel good, pat on the back virtue signal that so many left-leaning white dominated spaces perpetuate. It is a call-to-action, a call to care, and a desire to move beyond conversation. It is a commitment to this ongoing work.
Thank you for listening to Poetry Walks. To submit your work, you can do so by emailing arlotomecek@gmail.com. To help this podcast, you can review and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Resources:
https://oknativeassets.org/membership
https://chuffed.org/project/115245-dahnoun-mutual-aid
https://native-land.ca/
https://www.whose.land/en/
https://library.chatham.edu/whoseland
https://rethinkingplace.bard.edu/