Guest Post: Kiera-Dawn Kolson

(Kiera- Dawn Kolson: Photo By: Christine McFarlane)

Kiera-Dawn Kolson (pronounced Ki-air-ahh) of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada has a natural talent for music and creating lyrics for songs. She first stepped onto a stage at the age of four years old reciting a thirty-two line, four stanza poem winning her first trophy at the Territorial Metis Talent Show in 1990. Since then she has performed at local events such as the Seniors Christmas feasts, at the Raven Mad Daze and Bush Whacked Festivals, at the local Arts and Cultural Center, has sang her songs at the DreamCatchers Youth Conference in Edmonton, Alberta encouraging youth to be the best they can be, and during the past four years, at the White Bear Reserve in Saskatchewan and at the Yellowknife National Aboriginal Day events.

Ms. Kolson sang songs she wrote when she attended the International Youth Parliament in Sydney, Australia, at the Earth Ling Environment Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia and for the after-party at the Aboriginal Achievement Awards in 2006 at Vancouver, British Columbia and at the 2006 after-party in Winnipeg, Manitoba at the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Awards. Ms. Kolson was chosen to attend the Artist’s Mentoring Program for the Canada Summer Games in 2005 in Regina, Saskatchewan and was chosen to represent the Northwest Territories as a cultural ambassador at the March 2006 Arctic Winter Games in Kenai, Alaska where she sang for the athletes, staff and guests.

In 2004 Kiera sang back up for her cousin Aaron Perez of Victoria, British Columbia on his first CD, received an N.W.T Arts Council grant to produce her first CD Demo featuring five songs, and in November 2006 collaborated with Nasty North Productions from Regina, Saskatchewan on a single song. Kiera began writing songs when she was thirteen years old and at age twenty-five has written over 100 songs. Kiera’s goal is to produce a full-length CD featuring 12 songs in rhythm and blues as well Hip- Hop and a mix of Aboriginal traditional music of the Northwest Territories. She is interested in helping youth and speaks words of encouragement in many of her song pieces.

Political Prisoner 

Poetry

Written by Kiera-Dawn Kolson

Political Prisoner
Spends your last winders, springs, summers and falls
Behind bars, enclosed in a box, 6ft above the ground
Enclosed in Territorial boundaries, on reserve land
For our rights we do stand tall
And we demand justice for all the wrong doings
Political Prisoner
I am him and he is her
Guilty not for murder, or for taking a life
But for raising awareness to understand and see
Believe in equality, unity, justice for the wrongs done to you and me
Political Prisoner
I will clench my fist for you and throw it up into the air
For your injustice, I will share...your story
And make the ignorant aware
I will not live to regret
What still today has not been said yet
Political Prisoner
I will remember you, you stood up against
The red, the white and the blue too
Your words forever etched into my heart, my mind, my soul
Through your strength we will regain control
I am on the outside and you are on the in
But Political Prisoners we are two of a kind
Both living in an enclosed world, run by enclosed minds
A mind which thinks that by shutting us away from the world, will not make them hear
Make them care, but the thing about words with truth
They make you AWARE
So to all the Political Prisoners out there who speak the truth
Our truth, your truth.
Continue to do so, motivate our people, our youth
Keep fighting the system, not the people
Their will come a day when this will all pay off, we will be recognized as equals
This is not our last stand
Not until there is justice across every indigenous land
So Political Prisoner Mahsi(Thank you) for your strife
Until justice is served and our voices heard
We are all political prisoners serving life.

@KKolson07