Seed to Poem Writers

m'itlaa “meesh”

"someone who cares about me"
you've kept

yet don't know

where to find it next

"write"

i need

what i hear

what needs to be said

"the type of person i am"

i will

doll up first

and i'll work from there

"mud"

bonds made by bounds i didn't choose myself. compounds making the best of the world with each other before knowing what they are or where they are. that something exists within; that some where exists beyond. i was the water to your soil; us the mud passing through each other like ships passing through the night.

from one side of apartheid, the other side of infinite growth, what shame is to be held for things out of our control? i see my whole world compounded and compounded and compounded again. the indian pass system exists like a sieve. windows expand but will we ever catch up to having none at all? i can say it will never be worth losing the gems we left behind.

i got to know who i am, a necessity left up to luck and hard fought for.

10.16.25

m'itlaa “meesh”

author bio

m̓iƛaa “meesh” touchie (she/hers), łapḥsp̓at̓unakʔi łim̓aqsti (a mind with wings). m̓iƛaa is yuułuʔiłʔatḥ x maa~nulth treaty (2011) x nuučaan̓uɫatḥ; and is a poet, a spoken word artist, and a writer.

2015, m̓iƛaa debuted as a poet at the talking stick festival, mentored by poets in the urban native youth association.

2017, m̓iƛaa studied spoken word at the banff centre for creativity and arts; and was made a poet of honor as a 'rising voice' at the canadian festival of spoken word.

2018, m̓iƛaa competed in poetry slam, advancing on to the team representing vancouver poetry slam - alongside kay kassirer, rabbit richards, and jaye simpson - and to the canadian festival for spoken words national competition. together they would advance to 3rd place in the country.

2021, m̓iƛaa wrote a poem for the short film 'johnny crow' directed by xstine cook and illustrated by jesse gouchey.

m̓iƛaa’s cause

m̓iƛaa’s grandmother had two siblings who, as children, were taken against their will to residential schools & whose subsequent treatment, death, and disappearances were never explained; and they never returned. m̓iƛaa is also a intergenerational inheritor of residential school trauma as many more of her relatives, uncles and aunties included, were taken there; most of whom were abused while all of them were stripped of their rightful culture, language, and heritage. this is just m̓iƛaa’s maternal family history, thusly there is far more colonial violence in her dna for settlers to reconcile. m̓iƛaa pleads with you to defy residential school denialism; she also asks you to donate to the indian residential school survivors society: https://www.irsss.ca/donate

Feature 2

please visit again, soon, to find out more…

Feature 3

please visit again, soon, to find out more…