Gauntlet

Abstract

Gauntlet1 Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek (bio) let's go2 write3 the poem4 that5 marks6marks me7 marks my body8 marks me9 up10 inks me down11marks12 terror13 marks14 nightmare15 marks16discipline17 marks18 canon19 this20 is21 where22 that23 howl24 deepens25 because this26is27 where if how when & what28 we can29 write30 & now31that32 i've become the script33 listen34 [End Page 271] [End Page 272] [End Page 273] Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek is the author of 100 Days (University of Alberta, 2016) a book of poetry that reflects on the meaning of memory two decades after the Rwanda genocide. It was nominated for several writing prizes and won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. "gauntlet" was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize and is the title of a chapbook with the same title from Nomados Press (2019). She completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives. Footnotes 1. this is a poem for Our own self 2. let's go where neither of us has gone before & let's go see what's what 3. the right write let's go write the right stuff the write rites the right wrongs write out the right lies of the archive let's rite the forgotten those determined by who of us you disappeared 4. that determines who's who who's what who's when because you know that you know that you know that that's my face your feet landed on that last time don't you 5. these words mark me mark this page mark this day this time this is the rest of your life & like a curse like the hail mary like petals of a daisy you will always return to this moment 6. on this page i got proof of life i got full-throated laughter from recent days & i know where the red ribbons lay the ones you call fallacy the ones you call myth i know the ones you said were of no consequence were lies but after all were ribbons what Dionne Brand told us were signs of joy 7. as unsettled as we are as uninvited as perpetual guests holding on to a story clad in dark blue this is how we got here how we got to this place this is how we left this is where we came from this is why house yes but never home & this is a canadian passport 8. left we left didn't we we left to survive just so they could never claim that they got every last one of us 9. that is an acholi name one name two words this mark here is my birthplace kisumu kenya this is a canadian passport 10. my face in two worlds & the british queen's head still on canadian money 11. not anthems not flags not the deep blue of a canadian passport this is canadian citizenship this is me now 12. & this is the point 13. this is what i read 14. this is the rhythm of the page 15. is where my skull hardens out is what keeps me awake in the archives 16. where the curses are spelled out 17. & where we're marked up 18. the symbol of your power 19. is where we disappear 20. this this this this is a canadian passport 21. where my savage meets yours where my savage is you where my songs are the text of this economy 22. we're spelled out in musical notes 23. song & i stand 24. to the woman at steam clock in gastown prefaced & gagged by rhythm 25. the chorus of ancestors at the bottom of the ocean & the ones that ghost above 26. this also is a vancouver lyric 27. is this is libelous like gassy jack 28. who often straight out threatens like jack himself not far...