Lennox Island, P.E.I. roots form inspiration for Halifax poet laureate

A poet and scholar from Halifax whose family roots are inLennox Island, was in Charlottetown Friday as the keynote speaker at a UPEI conference.

Rebecca Thomas is also the poet laureate for the City of Halifax, a Mi'kmaqwoman working at the Nova Scotia Community College co-ordinating Aboriginal student services.

She came to poetry late, when she was a post-graduate student in Halifax, she explained to Mainstreet's Karen Mair.

"I wrote a thesis, I did my masters, and I realized I wanted to affect change, and this wasn't how I was going to do it," she said. "What I said was great, but nobody wants to read a 127-page master's thesis from a 25-year-old know-it-all, nobody wants that."

She was able to find her voice when she had to write a poem for an assignment.

"It was very well-received, so I just kept writing, and would go to open mic's," Thomas said. "The previous poet laureate, El Jones, invited me up to open mic, and said 'You were great, will you feature next month?' I said, 'Yeah, okay, sure,' and I started writing more and now I find myself in the position of poet laureate."

Seeing through othereyes

Her talk at the UPEI conference was called Do You See What I See?, a perspective of what it's like to be an Indigenous woman in Canada.

That's some of what she features in her poetry, trying to create an atmosphere of empathy by showing the effects of colonialism over the years.

"People perceive status cards as these top-notch, you are the most Native if you have a status card, they get you cool stuff, and tax-free," she gave as an example. "But in reality, what status cards are is it's a government way to control and limit access to treaty rights for Indigenous folk here in Canada."

Thomas has strong messages to pass on, and has adapted her poetry to that goal.

"It's about making it digestible," she explained. "I try to get across these grand topics of identity and politics and misrepresentation and appropriation and all that sort of stuff in these little, short, three-minute or less pieces, because I'm a slam poet. I compete in poetry competitions, and one of the rules is that it has to be under three minutes long.

"So how can you do that in a way that is impactful yet digestible? I don't want to mince words, I don't want people to misunderstand what I have to say, so it's about using punchy language, good themes and putting your heart in it."

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