Spawn is a braided collection of brief, untitled poems, a coming-of-age lyric set in the Mashteuiatsh Reserve on the shores of Lake Piekuakami (Saint-Jean) in Quebec. Undeniably political, Gill's poems ask: How can one reclaim a narrative that has been confiscated and distorted by colonizers? The poet's young avatar reaches new levels on Nintendo, stays up too late online, wakes to her period on class photo day, and carves her lovers' names into every surface imaginable. Encompassing twenty-first-century imperialism, coercive assimilation, and 90s-kid culture, the collection is threaded with the speaker's desires, her searching: for fresh water to "take the edge off," for a "habitable word," for sex. For her "true north"--her voice and her identity. Like the life cycle of the ouananiche that frames this collection, the speaker's journey is cyclical; immersed in teenage moments of confusion and life on the reserve, she retraces her scars to let in what light she can, and perhaps in the end discover what to "make of herself". Praise for Spawn: "Spawn is an epic journey that follows the ouananiche in their steadfast ability to hold: rigid, shimmering, hardened to the frigid waters of winter, in all of its capacities of and for whiteness. Here, poems summon a spawn of wonderworking dreams: 'a woman risen up from all these winter worlds, heaped with ice [and] ready to start again'." --Joshua Whitehead, author of Jonny Appleseed "Spawn is unforgettable poetry of the highest order." --Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf "Gill's poems are like small treasures clutched in buried tree roots, preserving 'the chalky veins' of ancestral memory pulsing just below our modern hustle." --Kiki Petrosino, author of White Blood

Spawn (Literature in Translation Series)

Literature & Fiction

Gill, Marie-Andrée

Poetry

Book*hug Press

You're the clump of blackened spruce that lights my gasoline-soaked heart It's just impossible you won't be back to quench yourself in my crème-soda ancestral spirit Irreverent and transcendent, lyrical and slang, Heating the Outdoors is an endlessly surprising new work from award-winning poet Marie-Andrée Gill. In these micropoems, writing and love are acts of decolonial resilience. Rooted in Nitassinan, the territory and ancestral home of the Ilnu Nation, they echo the Ilnu oral tradition in Gill's interrogation and reclamation of the language, land, and interpersonal intimacies distorted by imperialism. They navigate her interior landscape--of heartbreak, humor, and, ultimately, unrelenting light--amidst the boreal geography. Heating the Outdoors describes the yearnings for love, the domestic monotony of post-breakup malaise, and the awkward meeting of exes. As the lines between interior and exterior begin to blur, Gill's poems, here translated by Kristen Renee Miller, become a record of the daily rituals and ancient landscapes that inform her identity not only as a lover, then ex, but also as an Ilnu and Québécoise woman.

Heating the Outdoors (Literature in Translation Series)

Between the Moments (Canadian Aboriginal Voices)

Bookland Pr Inc

Frayer à même la cicatrice frayer Tailler l’histoire, remonter les mémoires, observer les courses et les égarements de la fraie : l’écriture de Marie-Andrée Gill est là dans toute sa splendeur. Du haut du rempart devant le lac – le Piekuakami –, elle replonge dans les instants confondants de l’adolescence vécue dans la réserve, à chercher à quoi ressembler, « quoi faire de sa peau ». Par sa poésie délinquante, Marie-Andrée Gill transvase les contrastes qui définissent la communauté ilnue qui l’a vue grandir. Puisque nos morts ne s’envolent pas, elle retrace les cicatrices pour éventuellement chasser la douleur, revient au « village qui n’a pas eu le choix ». nous n’existons que pour rire de nous-mêmes et nous chercher la nuit

Frayer

La Peuplade

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gill, Marie-Andrée. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gill, Marie-Andrée