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Brent Michael Davids

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Of This Turtle Isle

Of This Turtle Isle | Media List


Statement

OF THIS TURTLE ISLE features the words of Anishanabe (White Earth) poet Marcie R. Rendon. Marcie R. Rendon is a mother, grandmother, writer and sometimes performance artist. About “OF THIS TURTLE ISLE” Rendon explains, "When writing, I thought about the Phillips neighborhood and how it seems to be the gathering place for newly landed immigrants, how this land is historically native land, and how my ancestors (indigenous people) welcomed new peoples to this continent until such time as we were brutalized. I thought about how Columbus described the Indigenous people he first saw as "children of God," which may be where the real term "Indians" came from, in dios.

I thought about how we still welcome people to this continent, no matter how impoverished we are and how most groups, including those who have been here for generations, don't seem to realize that we still exist. Yet the spirits of our ancestors hold out that it is the Indigenous people of the world who will lead the rest of humanity to a more human reality. Our children, no matter how confused it gets in the material world, are still spoken to by spirit, often through our elders. This "continental" community can only survive by adhering to, listening to, the voices of the ancestors and being at one with Turtle Island" .