Wakefield Brewster

LITERACY

And by now we’ve ascertained 
New times have come to stay
With each afresh we start anew
Old new-times fray and flay 
The aching of economy
And rising twixt restrictions
We’re looming for a lockdown
Hence commence the contradictions

With information on the furl
It’s hard to feel assured
If you can truly tell for sure
Of what this world’s endured
Slenderize the view is how
Mentality is moored
So are we at our sickest
And just simply feigning cured?

The grander game spans out of frame
The symptom frauds the root of pain
Accountability turns blame
Opinion is elective
Make not surely by volition
Perjure solely by omission
Thus concealing said position
Truth remains selective

The radius of fact ellipses
Doubting umbra then eclipses
Close your mind and load your lips is
Common conversation
Voicing venom so obscene
Prevailing all the while unseen
Abaft the fortress of your screen 
The new norm of the nation

Reality mentality completely aren’t clicking
For medical research has been reduced to cherry-picking
And not for that a text or tome was pored through line by line
But for some foreign movie clip that ‘someone’ saw online



I Googled it and got a hit and totally got in it
I watched the whole entire thing - it lasted like – a minute
‘Some doctor’ talked about ‘some stuff’ so ‘seen’ I understand
Even through the foreign lingo of another land?

Indistinct interpretation 	
Incorrect reiteration
Insufficient in translation
Lack of expertise
Sentence structure incomplete
The punctuation obsolete
Now grammar on its running feet
I’m calling the police

Said in any situation
From the sickness of a nation
To the final moment left
In the eleventh hour
Listening and comprehension
Education by extension 
Knowing that great literacy
Is indeed great power

Bios

Wakefield Brewster, with his hands together and dressed in black (including a beanie) and a thin gold chain, standing in front of a red background

In January 1999, Wakefield Brewster stepped onto his first stage as a Poet and Spoken Word Artist. Today, he is known as one of Canada’s most powerful Professional Performance Poets. In April 2022, he became the sixth Poet Laureate of Calgary, as well, the first Black Poet Laureate of Calgary, ever. [provided in April 2023]

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