This journal will answer the question: "How does the use of language enhance the theme of the poem?". First, I will identify who the author is and where she comes from. Second, I will identify the theme of the poem and answer the above noted question.
Louise Halfe was born in Saddle Lake Reserve in 1953. She is of the Cree Nation. She lives in Saskatoon with her husband and two children. As a child, she attended a residential school in St. Paul, Alberta. .
As a survivor of the residential schools, she writes this poem in the form of a 'letter' to the Pope because she thinks of him as the leader in the Catholic religion. This poem, My Ledders, when read, with the way she spells the English words often incorrectly, has a heavy dialect in the words as if a Cree person was really speaking them, or writing them. The English is broken and not in perfect syntax. In the poem there are two languages used, Cree and English. This enhances the poem, making the reader believe it is coming from a Cree perspective. Five times within the 'letter' she used Cree words written in Roman Orthography. Some Cree words are used in the poem: nahkom (my grandma) and nimosam (my grandpa), isistwina (teachings), mtotsn (sweating-tent also called a sweatlodge) and kimoti (stealing). .
The theme of the poem is that her traditions are being lost or alienated, and she needs the Pope to talk to the Government to help her and her people retain and protect their culture because the Government might listen to him. For this reason she asks the Pope for help. This is ironic, because in the past, the Catholics (Christian missionaries), with the help of the Government, tried to take away her grandparents' spiritual beliefs and culture, by banning such traditional Cree religious practices and ceremonies as the Sundance, the sweatlodges, the drumming and singing of traditional songs, legends and storytelling, and the speaking of their language.
