| Description | From award-winning Driftpile Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, a dazzling exploration of love, anguish, queerness, and Indigenous resistance in the 21st century Queer Indigenous poet Billy-Ray Belcourt offers up a powerful meditation on the present as a space where the past and a still-possible utopia collide. Rigorous in research and thought yet accessible in language and imagery, this collection weaves lyric verse, sonnets, field notes, and fragments to examine the delicate facets of queer Indigeneity. Belcourt contends with the afterlife of what he calls “the long twentieth century,” a period marked by assaults on Indigenous life, and his people’s enduring resistance. The poems, sometimes heartbreaking, other times sly and humorous, are marked by the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt’s body of work. By its close, the collection makes the urgent argument that we are each our own little statues of both grief and awe. His third book of poetry and sixth across genres, Billy-Ray Belcourt’s The Idea of an Entire Life leaves readers with a vision for queer Indigenous life as it is shaped by a violent history—and yet pulled toward a more flourishing future.
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Daring and vulnerable, this is the highly anticipated new collection from Griffin Poetry Prize winner Billy-Ray Belcourt. In The Idea of An Entire Life, Belcourt delivers an intimate examination of twenty-first-century anguish, love, queerness, and political possibility. Through lyric verse, sonnets, fieldnotes, and fragments, the poems, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes slyly humorous, are always finely crafted, putting to use the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt’s body of work. By its close, the collection makes the urgent argument that we are each our own little statues of grief and awe.
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Daring and vulnerable, this is the highly anticipated new collection from Griffin Poetry Prize winner Billy-Ray Belcourt. In The Idea of An Entire Life, Belcourt delivers an intimate examination of twenty-first-century anguish, love, queerness, and political possibility. Through lyric verse, sonnets, fieldnotes, and fragments, the poems—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes slyly humorous—are always finely crafted, putting to use the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt's body of work. By its close, the collection makes the urgent argument that we are each our own little statues of grief and awe. 'When I wrote my first book of poetry,' reflects Belcourt, 'I wrote from a place of desperation. I wanted very desperately to live a full queer Indigenous life and I wasn't sure if I would attain it. The Idea of an Entire Life began with the realization that I have that life now and so I wanted to think through the ways a queer Indigenous life is hampered by history but nonetheless full of possibility. What will the rest of my life make available to me? How has the twentieth century indelibly shaped me and my community? The book is about my reserve in northern Alberta, how the past tailgates me wherever I go. It's also about my coming-into-being as a queer Indigenous man and how I've tried to remake my conditions of living to enable flourishing and possibility.' |
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