Joshua Whitehead
REFLECTIONS ON LITTLE [BULLHEAD]
‘dublin dan’ was a fine, fine man— & i wonder how much he would pay me for a photo of my cock? i found dan’s name in a book titled man— itoba as I saw it from 1869 to date along with a written note & a photo pasted over the cover “do you know him?” it’s dated christ— mas 1909: “i wish you to live a hundred years and i hope to live a hundred years less a day for i have no wish to live when my old friend has passed away” charles james & if you curtail the ‘o’ in ‘old’, curs— ive style, it almost looks like ‘red’ “my red friend has passed away” now that’s a story i can believe i wonder if they were lovers? this dan, this charles which one was the top which the bottom? which the christian? which the red-skin? & 106 years later at christmas, yet i still get in fistfights at the band office because i wear my pants too tight all i want is my hand-out same as anybody else in the book there are pictures of old dead white men who adorn their names with hyphened honours & split proper nouns to fill the page (why do hyphens work for them?): honourablesenatorturnerlieutenantgovernorarchibald&evenhisgracearchbishop l y n c h i have trouble telling them apart the only significant difference is the mutton chops that frisk their faces —& i like that word, mutton (but i’m not supposed to want)— there are photos of cpr, a little school erect on the prairie an ox plowing the field & kanji written in pencil on the page questioning: what means constituency? little hearts & exclamation marks deco “natives objected to his wearing purple” i write back: AMI but it doesn’t feel right for a book like this i need to take out the M, AI means love i flip to a photo of major-general cameron: ‘rielwasadangerouscrankhalflunaticitwasnotalwaysthesamepriestbutallspokealong pacificlinesallaytheturbulenceinthemindsofthehalfbreedsitmustberememberedthat thenativeswerebeinginstructedbytheirownspiritualadvisersandwouldnaturallybein sympathywiththemtherewasonepriestafrenchmanandwhileiamnotawareofhispers onalsympathywiththeuprisingofthenativesduringtheimprisonmentihavethoughthis viewsratherradical; —my mother’s maiden name is cameron & i think back to my french grandfather, rene who left me a roll of film after he died— it was the first time i met that part of my f a m i l y ‘we’ll catch up, we’ll talk, we will, i pro– ‘ white wishes, white lies a minor benign falsehood (benign being a gentle thing that diseases, that kills) twenty dollars & gas station lollipops wouldn’t feed a rez dog never mind a grandchild— i give him muttonchops too & sorry cameron 106 years later i have not yet been allayed & that must be remembered i close the book, put it back on the shelf notice the harsh black tape that still holds it together the book is staining daily it eats itself, simply its foxing silly little thing maybe in 100 years more you’ll finally disappear & that’s the real trick ain’t it? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahereiamhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahereiamahahahahahahahha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahereiamhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahereiamhahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahereiamah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hereiamhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahereiamahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahereiamshahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahereiamahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahereiamhhahahahahahahahahahahaha !
Joshua Whitehead is currently a graduate student at The University of Winnipeg and is pursuing a degree in Cultural Studies. His critical work has largely focused on tracing representations of Native and African North American cultural texts from the 19th to the 21st centuries. He is the former co-editor of The University of Winnipeg’s creative writing juice journal and is currently working as a co-editor for CV2‘s Poetry Lives Here: Young Poet Supplement. Joshua readily frames his critical and creative research as an overlapping dialogue – he strongly believes that poetry is an ample medium for disseminating social, theoretical, and political information via its possibilities for world-making, revisionism, and fostering conversation. In his spare time you may find him heedlessly watching reruns of Rupaul’s Drag Race, reading X-Men comics, eating copious amounts of Ambrosia apples, and writing persuasive essays about Nicki Minaj.
Very good!