: out of what twisted music you were pushed : what rattles and ricochets
: as necessary as what releases you : a relationship to creativity sustains you :
propels you from the place grammar functions to dysfunction your inner voice
: you live a double life : you keep a private collection of daydreams and lyrics :
behind bedroom walls you wait with headphones for the last chapter of violent
autobiographies : the brittle crash of tectonic plates : upheaval of keepsakes like
school-day portraits in plastic gold frames : your oppressor and your craft : you
carry stories not yours to tell : you scratch apologies on yourself : you reveal an
essay written in jazz trumpets and asthmatic lungs : you have to work twice as
hard to exhale : you ask a guidance counsellor for advice : you are afraid to
admit what you call beauty : what you can’t say out loud : what you can’t hold
down : what you must not put into plain paragraphs : some cuss words and a
wrinkled grocery bag of tinsel : a strip of grammatic dynamite : there’s a certain
amount of power you reclaim : you can’t control the contraption but you can
imagine yourself belonging to a brilliant and more desirable spin : it all depends
on what you listen for when you are most alone : the quality of voice you speak
to yourself : how carefully you read the room :

you don’t live with any bookshelves : you don’t go to school with any kids
who look like you : but you understand why it feels like poor punctuation
defines you : you’ve never seen idioms made in your image : there’s a world you
deserve and this world is not made to fit you : you get good at being singled out
: enjambment becomes an armour for you : is freedom : what you do for yourself
when you are made invisible : injured : is privilege : what questions and cusses
: what carols you catapult onto a blank page : the conditions you resist :

the fractures of a family you stanza together : the sporadic spell : a
piercing call to memorize details navigating what was not meant to survive
you : bounce on the golden bed of your truth : if you reach one lifetime
elsewhere : if you expect better for other beings : you double : empathy : is
fuel for self-understanding : your parents have not failed you : the world has
failed your family history : you are a product and a people : you must
personify hidden glaciers of this knowledge to break its fever : to dismantle its
legacy : in your notebook now is a list of allies and tyrants : mentors and
guides : there are new daydreams and lyrics to collect : despite rejections and
imperfections : you keep moving across the page :

between you : and hard listening : is stolen territory : is grammar : is
capital : is a world not made to fit you : the world you deserve is perplexed : is
celebrating : and maybe someplace you don’t have to keep bulletins of
affirmations : someplace not programmed by empires : someplace you
recognize an abolished hierarchy : a diluted fear of recessive and abusive
patterns : but until soon : this current : this constitution builds debt : this
grammar needs numbers : this cosmetic resilience : cologne and all-inclusive
vacations : this gravity of extraordinary suffering : this desire to
misunderstand suffering : needs ethics of listening : sometimes it asks you to
speak on behalf : preservation is not wanting to bother : is not wanting to be
bothered : is not trained to volley weapons in all directions the way flower
petals grow : your intelligible slant and slang : here is you : is trinket of
choosing : is not going back to serving hatred the way they scripted you :

archaic language tries to talk you into unbelievable obedience : a violent
home is no different than a protected percent : dominating airtime and
planetary resources : the world is no safer than your body : bodies like your
body : these stadiums of bodies : these courtrooms and towns : theatres of
bodies : clubs and synagogues of bodies : bodies visible not venerable : bodies
resilient : not healed : bodies stuck in twisted music : bodies competing for

breath and regular respect : pitied bodies : bracketed bodies : starved bodies :
bodies trafficked and attacked : granting bodies : what new grammar you hear
them making : return to bodies : bodies that are missing : bodies your
daydream reaches for : just because you can’t believe what’s happening
doesn’t mean you indulge denial : can’t be entertained by this world you’re
observing : sometimes you don’t have the language but a voice you squeeze
through makes clearing : for deleted : for heightened awareness : moves
emotion into the material : when you put a pen in your hand : you don’t have
to tell it what to do it just moves :

there’s a world you deserve : a world that fits your body from the first
needle on the track : from warm up to cool down : from biology to social
impressions : you deserve a world that doesn’t neglect you or shrink your
light : you deserve loves : you deserve plums and some brink of brief relief :
you deserve all the directions your crown of flower petals grow : your intelligible
slant and slang : here is you : new telephone wires that sputter :
that speck : that spark : is all you need : is not going back :

is summoning forward : is not possible to return to language you never
possessed : you’re somebody nobody in your family has ever been : you disrupt
structures of unkindness and brain-freeze : you enter and graduate higher
education : student to all language giving language : book stacks now tower you
in your living room : microphones make your voice loud silk : you gain a sense
of security amongst a community : you have purpose because you have
community : you are not alone : together you lean into this difficult double life
and challenge its injustices : you and your people arrive to towers and
monuments crumbling : you believe beyond unbearable circumstances : you
have something important to become : you have chores :

chores not yours : not only your chores : not only mindless chores :
laborious chores : quick and cheap chores : years of chores : you influence the
next generations’ quality of chores : you publish your daydreams and lyrics :
you refuse to be at peace with violence : no matter if violence is in another
language : not here but elsewhere : you strive to eradicate this grammar :
you’ve outlived what was not meant to survive you : you keep moving across
the page

When The Rebel Rolls Through

Call her : The Rebel

To break the cycle of violence in her home
she writes poems
It gives her

access to an attitude
the ways of the world attempt to sub-
tract from her

Looking back it’s easier to piece together
the fractures of her
family

and looking ahead
it’s how she holds herself accountable for a future
she won’t be around
to see

Her poetry is her legacy

She uses her voice to disrupt structures
of unkindness and
brain-freeze
Despite
what you might
think:
a Rebel doesn’t go out
looking for trouble

a Rebel
does not seek revenge

A Rebel refuses to be subdued by any setbacks or acts
of violence and searches
within
for that speck, that spark of resilience

She believes
we each have an influence
on the quality of breath and self-respect the next generation has
We might not get to choose
where or to whom
we are born

however the matter, no matter how much love
a person receives
all it takes is one act of unkindness
to kill somebody

She has seen how even a particle
of unkindness
compelled her parental guardians to become gargoyles

At first, it was just a few bad table manners
but eventually the kitchen table became a magnet
for disaster

Without knowing no better
she began to believe she had nothing important to become
because she had lost all good feelings to come from

Wishing herself so small
she wished
herself missing

Until finally a little voice erupted
and thankfully
she listened

Having community to count on
respect her and
check her
is how she’s able to flourish
despite the adversity and odds against her
Having a rebellious nature
doesn’t make her a troublemaker
This Rebel reveals regal reverence
writing rhymes to relieve resentment
Recognizing we each have a fire in our chests
and bet we’re meant to keep each other warm
She resists the urge to become numb with doubt
flexing her hand of encouragement out

Not always arriving almighty, but timely, oou!
when The Rebel finally rolls through, yeah
Oou!
when The Rebel rolls through

it is not only her heart
that cracks open, it is
her voice

---

Born and raised in Kingston, Ontario, Britta Badour, better known as Britta B., is an award winning artist, spoken word poet, performer, emcee, voice talent and mentor living in Toronto. In 2023, she released her debut poetry collection, Wires that Sputter, published by McClelland & Stewart in Canada and the USA.

In 2021, Britta was announced Toronto Arts Foundation’s Breakthrough Artist and COCA Lecturer of the Year. Her work has been featured in print, in sound and onstage across North America in notable spheres such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, CBC Arts: Poetic License, The Walrus Talks, TEDx and The Stephen Lewis Foundation. As an educator, Britta facilitates artist-training seminars, poetry workshops and social justice programs in partnership with organizations like JAYU, Poetry In Voice, Prologue Performing Arts, and League of Canadian Poets.

Britta holds a Creative Writing MFA from the University of Guelph and is a professor of spoken word performance at Seneca College.

Twitter/IG: @missbrittab