This is the Oppressors Language

University of California, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA, Winter 2020 

In this long-form poem, I expanded on the quote from the poem “The Burning of Papers Instead of Children” by Adrienne Rich, “This is the oppressor’s language, but I need it to speak to you.” The work produced addresses my own uses and transformation of the english language into a location of healing. With reference to bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, I question the ways that language can be morphed and mutated into speech. Simultaneously, I question conditions of subjugation under the rule of nation-states and imagine alternative modes of self-governance and liberation.