What do you think?
Rate this book
The Idea of an Entire Life: Poems
One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
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.
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.
76 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2025
About the author
Billy-Ray Belcourt
10 books821 followersBilly-Ray Belcourt is a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. His books are: THIS WOUND IS A WORLD (Frontenac House 2017; UMinn Press 2019), winner of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, NDN COPING MECHANISMS (House of Anansi 2019), winner of the 2020 Stephan G. Stephansson Poetry Prize and longlisted for Canada Reads, A HISTORY OF MY BRIEF BODY (Hamish Hamilton and Two Dollar Radio 2020), finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for Non-Fiction and the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography, and the forthcoming A MINOR CHORUS: A NOVEL (Hamish Hamilton and Norton 2022).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
June 10, 2026
You can hear lots of inner struggles here, but with a constant focus that the future will bring change - mostly for the positive. The collection gets better and better (and more queer) as you continue reading.
I always appreciate how Billy-Ray makes me think about life.
I read this book once, to absorb it and get inside the author's head. The very next day, I read it all again, but underlining things as I went. Snippets below.
5*
"Autofiction"
Every winter, I take pictures of the snow because the snow reminds me of my impermanence. Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined. A native truth: the present is as beautiful as it is brutal.
"Utopia"
Utopia is an impossible demand. Most likely, it's what happens when no one's looking.
"An Entire Life"
What do you make of the aspen trees,
by the way? Oh, how their leaves tremble
even when the world is completely still -
I, for one, am really no different.
"The Past Tense"
1.
During this era, reserves were, in effect,
open-air prisons. When you live
in an open-air prison, even the rain feels
like a slap from God.
8.
I am too young to have
to remember so much
"Childhood Triptych"
Th self emerges in the absence of better information. A native childhood is the colour of doubt.
...
As a kid, I had so much hope. I tried to sell it. I now understand that hope cannot be bought; it is passed around, like cutlery. Hope is not abstract. It is solid, and unbearable. It wounds.
...
I suspect that all children come from the same country of dreaming.
...
It's autumn already. So many leaves have fallen - I have to go out and kiss each one.
"The Closet"
What strange luck, in the end, to be most yourself in the dark - all that light churning inside you.
"Future Thinking"
As a boy, I tried every week to not want a different life.
...
I had been insatiable. I had too much hope. I didn't yet know that a native person could be a poet, so I often went to the water, its long edge a line breaking at my exposed feet. From some dark place inside me, some vacant chamber of future thinking, a voice said, Leap. So I leapt. I left.
"The Cruising Utopia Sonnets"
Queer people will be free, the current political regime will erode.
...
The human condition is maniacal and oddball.
...
All natives live somewhere between the modern and post-modern.
...
We are meeting for the first time in this sonnet. Hello.
...
It's a game, we're at the beach, and I'm not afraid to kiss my boyfriend in front of homophobes, some of whom aren't really homophobes., they just haven't refused a certain form of finitude yet.
...
Maybe a sonnet can be a gay space that is weirdly liberating.
...
Our longing are so rarely pure and simple. I love the small gestures that permit us, I love being intent to be lost, I love how much queer sense we make even when we're sad and defeated. I have an inarticulate message for all of you: to exist is a pain we have to keep bearing.
...
My first time in a humbele little gay bar in Edmonton, I felt both true and not true. The hum of other men's bodies was a decadence I didn't at first understand. I left alone, blissed out in a dense presentness - the banality of something I once thought unattainable. It is only now that I realize utopia's rehearsal rooms were everywhere I went as an extention of my repressed desires. The most important lesson from those days Was that a man's body could be a map to the world I barely survived, which feels indulgent to write from the luxury of a coherent self What can I possibly mean Today I write poems from the future In the future, queer people are still dying and dancing and feeling other people in dark rooms I linger on these things so I know I must resemble my despair .
...
I have loved every queer native man that I've met.
...
I now know that to be a homosexual is to be a theorist and an architect and then archivist and, of course, a poet We have to reject our negation We have to harness our love and joy in the act of utopian transformation Our social intercourse is not just some silly exchange.
...
My childhood desires were depressingly simple. I was not always certain that I wanted to be alive. I was not a beautiful young man, and I had wanted to be.
...
It was a normal love I strived for. I did not get it.
...
I did eventually experience normal Love. Just before I started grad school, I dated a man who texted me every evening for an entire summer. We spent most weekends together; We created our own pleasure principle, and our interchangeable reality where every gesture and gaze vibrated with latent sexuality.
...
I wanted our world to be small and enchanted.
...
I learned that the indentations lovers left behind in my bed were legitimate evidence of my own effective potentiality. I still don't think we are in that unimaginable place that is safe for men who desire men.
...
We can still become what we will one day touch!
"Fieldnotes"
The anxiety to define my loneliness but not transform it into property, to find a place to think in without getting trapped. What if love doesn't free me What if when my life ends there is still more life
"Form"
(Entire poem!!)
"Subjugated Knowledge"
It is something like freedom - inhabiting my own little sphere of nonsense ideas.
"Fieldnotes"
I mean to live more brilliantly but I'm not on too many committees .
...
In my early 20s, I had already breathed in as much of the past as was humanly possible
"Realism"
The hardest task of my early 20s was to withstand myself.
...
I write poems to remind myself I am in love with a freedom I haven't yet experienced.
I always appreciate how Billy-Ray makes me think about life.
I read this book once, to absorb it and get inside the author's head. The very next day, I read it all again, but underlining things as I went. Snippets below.
5*
"Autofiction"
Every winter, I take pictures of the snow because the snow reminds me of my impermanence. Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined. A native truth: the present is as beautiful as it is brutal.
"Utopia"
Utopia is an impossible demand. Most likely, it's what happens when no one's looking.
"An Entire Life"
What do you make of the aspen trees,
by the way? Oh, how their leaves tremble
even when the world is completely still -
I, for one, am really no different.
"The Past Tense"
1.
During this era, reserves were, in effect,
open-air prisons. When you live
in an open-air prison, even the rain feels
like a slap from God.
8.
I am too young to have
to remember so much
"Childhood Triptych"
Th self emerges in the absence of better information. A native childhood is the colour of doubt.
...
As a kid, I had so much hope. I tried to sell it. I now understand that hope cannot be bought; it is passed around, like cutlery. Hope is not abstract. It is solid, and unbearable. It wounds.
...
I suspect that all children come from the same country of dreaming.
...
It's autumn already. So many leaves have fallen - I have to go out and kiss each one.
"The Closet"
What strange luck, in the end, to be most yourself in the dark - all that light churning inside you.
"Future Thinking"
As a boy, I tried every week to not want a different life.
...
I had been insatiable. I had too much hope. I didn't yet know that a native person could be a poet, so I often went to the water, its long edge a line breaking at my exposed feet. From some dark place inside me, some vacant chamber of future thinking, a voice said, Leap. So I leapt. I left.
"The Cruising Utopia Sonnets"
Queer people will be free, the current political regime will erode.
...
The human condition is maniacal and oddball.
...
All natives live somewhere between the modern and post-modern.
...
We are meeting for the first time in this sonnet. Hello.
...
It's a game, we're at the beach, and I'm not afraid to kiss my boyfriend in front of homophobes, some of whom aren't really homophobes., they just haven't refused a certain form of finitude yet.
...
Maybe a sonnet can be a gay space that is weirdly liberating.
...
Our longing are so rarely pure and simple. I love the small gestures that permit us, I love being intent to be lost, I love how much queer sense we make even when we're sad and defeated. I have an inarticulate message for all of you: to exist is a pain we have to keep bearing.
...
My first time in a humbele little gay bar in Edmonton, I felt both true and not true. The hum of other men's bodies was a decadence I didn't at first understand. I left alone, blissed out in a dense presentness - the banality of something I once thought unattainable. It is only now that I realize utopia's rehearsal rooms were everywhere I went as an extention of my repressed desires. The most important lesson from those days Was that a man's body could be a map to the world I barely survived, which feels indulgent to write from the luxury of a coherent self What can I possibly mean Today I write poems from the future In the future, queer people are still dying and dancing and feeling other people in dark rooms I linger on these things so I know I must resemble my despair .
...
I have loved every queer native man that I've met.
...
I now know that to be a homosexual is to be a theorist and an architect and then archivist and, of course, a poet We have to reject our negation We have to harness our love and joy in the act of utopian transformation Our social intercourse is not just some silly exchange.
...
My childhood desires were depressingly simple. I was not always certain that I wanted to be alive. I was not a beautiful young man, and I had wanted to be.
...
It was a normal love I strived for. I did not get it.
...
I did eventually experience normal Love. Just before I started grad school, I dated a man who texted me every evening for an entire summer. We spent most weekends together; We created our own pleasure principle, and our interchangeable reality where every gesture and gaze vibrated with latent sexuality.
...
I wanted our world to be small and enchanted.
...
I learned that the indentations lovers left behind in my bed were legitimate evidence of my own effective potentiality. I still don't think we are in that unimaginable place that is safe for men who desire men.
...
We can still become what we will one day touch!
"Fieldnotes"
The anxiety to define my loneliness but not transform it into property, to find a place to think in without getting trapped. What if love doesn't free me What if when my life ends there is still more life
"Form"
(Entire poem!!)
"Subjugated Knowledge"
It is something like freedom - inhabiting my own little sphere of nonsense ideas.
"Fieldnotes"
I mean to live more brilliantly but I'm not on too many committees .
...
In my early 20s, I had already breathed in as much of the past as was humanly possible
"Realism"
The hardest task of my early 20s was to withstand myself.
...
I write poems to remind myself I am in love with a freedom I haven't yet experienced.
September 24, 2025
billy-ray does it again. everything i crave to feel from poetry was in this collection. stunning and perfect.
“Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined”
“Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined”
June 13, 2025
This was one of my most anticipated 2025 releases and I absolutely loved it. Billy-Ray Belcourt did it again and The Idea of An Entire Life made me cry. These poems are written beautifully and bring such depth and insight to his experiences as a Queer Cree man. My fave poem was 20th-Century Cree History. I will definitely be reading this collection again!
September 19, 2025
"On some maps, there / are the republics of Poetry and Death / and all that's between them is a lush forest. / That forest is called Listening Carefully. / The point is to get lost, / become a tree."
August 25, 2025
“What if in the midst of too many objects I become one?”
This collection of poems was so beautifully written. I was enthralled the entire time I was reading.
This collection of poems was so beautifully written. I was enthralled the entire time I was reading.
April 18, 2026
witty, thought-provoking, and timeless!
December 28, 2025
Tant de bo un llibre de Billy-Ray Belcourt per cada desembre.
November 28, 2025
" [...] I saw the arc
of my entire life and there was an equal amount
of joy and heartache and somehow I still loved
the idea of An Entire Life."
I fucking love enjambements.
art. pure art.
of my entire life and there was an equal amount
of joy and heartache and somehow I still loved
the idea of An Entire Life."
I fucking love enjambements.
art. pure art.
November 28, 2025
”What shape must our poems take? Maybe a sonnet can be a gay space that is weirdly liberating…
I love how much queer sense we make even when we’re sad and defeated.”
Oh this legendary book. There are so many pages I’ve dog-eared and underlined. His interpretation of the past, present, and future are so intriguing. His queerness drenched every poem. I will be buying every one of his books.
I love how much queer sense we make even when we’re sad and defeated.”
Oh this legendary book. There are so many pages I’ve dog-eared and underlined. His interpretation of the past, present, and future are so intriguing. His queerness drenched every poem. I will be buying every one of his books.
September 10, 2025
Beautiful as always
January 26, 2026
Belcourt is a queer Cree poet whose fiction I have enjoyed; it has a lyrical quality that makes these sonnets and free verse poems feel like a natural extension, or vice versa. There's an exuberance and subtle humor to some of these that remind me of Whitman, and a sense of hope even when Belcourt's themes are dark. No one poem really blew me away, but there was an undercurrent of strength paired with playfulness in these works that makes me feel like I will want to revisit them and see what I get from them on a second visit.
October 27, 2025
Such a beautiful collection of poems, such a pleasure to read.
Explores queerness, love, loss, grief, colonial violence, indigenousness, and the body; everything I needed to read poetry about in the past few weeks.
“Even death is a beginning. What is the subtext
of my sadness? How do I live in the world
if I don't love it? Many days I'm hysterical.
I remember the wind and what the wind
rustles through. A man speaks to me
in a human voice. I try to admire what's
left of the future, which flickers.”
Explores queerness, love, loss, grief, colonial violence, indigenousness, and the body; everything I needed to read poetry about in the past few weeks.
“Even death is a beginning. What is the subtext
of my sadness? How do I live in the world
if I don't love it? Many days I'm hysterical.
I remember the wind and what the wind
rustles through. A man speaks to me
in a human voice. I try to admire what's
left of the future, which flickers.”
September 1, 2025
”I love the small gestures that permit us, I love being intent to be lost”
My my what an emotional unveiling. What I love most about poetry is the abandonment in which poets so freely reveal their truths. Ugly, nasty, raw, beautiful and sincere truths.
To live and write with abandonment is poetry.
This collection reflects deeply on the 21st century, while claiming we never truly left the previous one. It’s a look at the stagnation of queerness, love, loss and moving forward.
Written in a series of sonnets and lyrical prose, the poems come out as intended, destructive and true to his philosophical style. Each ending leads to a thoughtful pondering. Humorous and also heartbreaking, the sinking question looms: why haven’t things changed?
“Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined.”
same.
[thank you @beaconpress @nakinisowin for this gifted copy!]
My my what an emotional unveiling. What I love most about poetry is the abandonment in which poets so freely reveal their truths. Ugly, nasty, raw, beautiful and sincere truths.
To live and write with abandonment is poetry.
This collection reflects deeply on the 21st century, while claiming we never truly left the previous one. It’s a look at the stagnation of queerness, love, loss and moving forward.
Written in a series of sonnets and lyrical prose, the poems come out as intended, destructive and true to his philosophical style. Each ending leads to a thoughtful pondering. Humorous and also heartbreaking, the sinking question looms: why haven’t things changed?
“Mostly I want to be undone without being ruined.”
same.
[thank you @beaconpress @nakinisowin for this gifted copy!]
December 28, 2025
The problem with pleasure is that
two people can meet in a room
in order to exist less
-The Problem With Pleasure
Can a person exist without being delimited? Do our ideas of utopia remind us of our immanence? Is transcendence possible at all when the world is often nothing but an excessive reminder of our being in it?
You'll find yourself with a lot of questions after reading Belcourt; geniuses often leave you with questions. But Belcourt asks them in such a way that you feel as if it's no big deal if the questions go unanswered. There is freedom in the very idea of existence when the question is asked. I find myself again in awe of the pain his words can carry. The unrelenting joy that follows. Munoz would have written of Belcourt in Cruising Utopia if he had had the chance.
What is an entire life? I don't really know, but Belcourt gives us pieces from which we can ask further questions.
10/10(as always)
two people can meet in a room
in order to exist less
-The Problem With Pleasure
Can a person exist without being delimited? Do our ideas of utopia remind us of our immanence? Is transcendence possible at all when the world is often nothing but an excessive reminder of our being in it?
You'll find yourself with a lot of questions after reading Belcourt; geniuses often leave you with questions. But Belcourt asks them in such a way that you feel as if it's no big deal if the questions go unanswered. There is freedom in the very idea of existence when the question is asked. I find myself again in awe of the pain his words can carry. The unrelenting joy that follows. Munoz would have written of Belcourt in Cruising Utopia if he had had the chance.
What is an entire life? I don't really know, but Belcourt gives us pieces from which we can ask further questions.
10/10(as always)
April 24, 2026
While there are many parts of life and consciousness explored in Belcourt’s poetry, His Nativeness and Queerness bleed into nearly every poem, and in truth, in everything he writes. It is clear these two identities have shaped not only how who writes, but how navigates the world.
There are so many powerful moments among the poems in this small collection. Belcourt has a way of looking at the world that feels both introspective and universal at the same time.
Beautiful! Truly!
There are so many powerful moments among the poems in this small collection. Belcourt has a way of looking at the world that feels both introspective and universal at the same time.
Beautiful! Truly!
June 9, 2026
This was a beautiful collection of ideas — a mix of poetry and field notes that form a loose narrative. It had a focus on what it means to be a queer, Indigenous man in modern Alberta. I could feel the author grappling with his identity on every page.
There were so many beautiful lines and moments throughout the book. This was close to home and wonderful.
There were so many beautiful lines and moments throughout the book. This was close to home and wonderful.
December 29, 2025
“i now know that to be a homosexual is to be a theorist and an architect and an archivist and, of course, a poet.”
i’ve never met a billy-ray belcourt book i didn’t love, and this was no exception. brilliant and beautiful as ever.
i’ve never met a billy-ray belcourt book i didn’t love, and this was no exception. brilliant and beautiful as ever.
January 24, 2026
3.5/5
first book read through a recommendation given to me through a youtube video
started reading while flying to philly to visit some friends
fav poems:
-realism
-the problem with pleasure
-endnotes
first book read through a recommendation given to me through a youtube video
started reading while flying to philly to visit some friends
fav poems:
-realism
-the problem with pleasure
-endnotes
December 1, 2025
This book was so damn good I immediately started back at the first poem and read the whole thing over again. I kept having to stop and breathe to recover from that feeling of fireworks going off in my brain. Just beautiful.
May 31, 2026
some beautiful entries to really think about - would love the audiobook version to really get a sense of the cadence.
October 17, 2025
loved this
January 1, 2026
"What do I want from literature, anyway?
A new way of living, a new way to talk
about the trees that doesn't endanger them."
-From Endnotes
A new way of living, a new way to talk
about the trees that doesn't endanger them."
-From Endnotes
June 19, 2026
Ke’bah rec, so good such beautiful storytelling about feeling unfamiliar in your own body as a queer person
Read
June 6, 2026so often stunning, wow
—
In time, love deranges all of us. / In time, all love is reduced to the childlessness of music. — 20th Century Cree History
What do I want from literature, anyway? / A new way of living, a new way to talk / about the trees that doesn’t endanger them. — Endnotes
When I said the instabilities of the self / reveal the publicness of our emotions / I meant that loneliness is a kind of season; / it falls on us like rain. — An entire life
I do not have / a mother tongue. / A mouth without / a mother tongue / speaks in echoes. — The past tense
My small, trembling life is crouched in the margins of a veiled text that begins at the end of the 19th century. / My hypothesis: all the people of Driftpile were born in 1901. / 1901 never ended. Tomorrow it will be 1901 again. / We are not citizens of a country. / We are citizens of a century. — Fieldnotes
—
In time, love deranges all of us. / In time, all love is reduced to the childlessness of music. — 20th Century Cree History
What do I want from literature, anyway? / A new way of living, a new way to talk / about the trees that doesn’t endanger them. — Endnotes
When I said the instabilities of the self / reveal the publicness of our emotions / I meant that loneliness is a kind of season; / it falls on us like rain. — An entire life
I do not have / a mother tongue. / A mouth without / a mother tongue / speaks in echoes. — The past tense
My small, trembling life is crouched in the margins of a veiled text that begins at the end of the 19th century. / My hypothesis: all the people of Driftpile were born in 1901. / 1901 never ended. Tomorrow it will be 1901 again. / We are not citizens of a country. / We are citizens of a century. — Fieldnotes
August 17, 2025
The Idea of an Entire Life by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Pub Date
“To exist is a pain we have to keep bearing”
I’ve long admired Billy-Ray Belcourt’s writing and I was eagerly anticipating his new work and it did not disappoint. It delivers an emotional wallop. It’s lyrical, vulnerable, and thought provoking.
His poetry is hauntingly beautiful, and powerfully emotive, laced with the philosophical depth that is uniquely his. His poetry blends and balances pain and joy, despair and hope all the while expressing a longing for a world that is different - safe, free and liberating.
It is impossible to read this and not feel deeply impacted emotionally. I’ve already read this twice and I know I will pick it up again.
Pub Date
“To exist is a pain we have to keep bearing”
I’ve long admired Billy-Ray Belcourt’s writing and I was eagerly anticipating his new work and it did not disappoint. It delivers an emotional wallop. It’s lyrical, vulnerable, and thought provoking.
His poetry is hauntingly beautiful, and powerfully emotive, laced with the philosophical depth that is uniquely his. His poetry blends and balances pain and joy, despair and hope all the while expressing a longing for a world that is different - safe, free and liberating.
It is impossible to read this and not feel deeply impacted emotionally. I’ve already read this twice and I know I will pick it up again.
November 17, 2025
a signed copy of a poetry collection by my favourite author from my best friends? oh 6 stars fr. such beautiful and devastating words as always
December 28, 2025
Belcourts writing always makes me hopeful. It’s like his poems place me in his memories and my own, in sadness and grief, and warmth hugged by the land and family. But the hopefulness is something sweet to taste and I really appreciate how his poems linger in the light of my body.
I read this book twice over the past couple months and different poems usually present themselves but very similar feelings. His poems also encourage me to write and give me hope that I can publish a collection one day.
I read this book twice over the past couple months and different poems usually present themselves but very similar feelings. His poems also encourage me to write and give me hope that I can publish a collection one day.
September 24, 2025
Billy-Rag Belcourt is hands down one of my favourite authors!!!! Lots of times I feel like I don't understand poetry but I just get Belcourt's writing. some of the lines just make you stop and re-read the words. Beautiful as always. 💕
November 25, 2025
My oh my, this was really beautiful. If this collection were a triptych, the main panel really held me. I loved the rhythm of each sonnet, where every end was a beginning. I loved how it felt like a collection by a historian, archivist, child, man, anthropologist, all at once. I love how it complicates our understanding of the past and present. I could list enough quotes from this collection to hit the max character count, but here goes five:
“Indulging in the image of someone elses queer magnificence / can be a necessary act.”
“I became a homosexual because / pleasure was an aspiration, a structure of feeling I / knew as the vague shape of what would save my life. / I now know that to be a homosexual is to be a theorist / and an architect and an archivist and, of course, a poet. / We have to reject our negation, we have to harness / our love and joy in the act of utopian transformation.”
“I still / don't think we are in that unimaginable place / that is safe for men who desire men. Sure, the apps / turned the city into one big sexual fantasy, but / my suspicion is that there's something more joyfully resonant out there, among flowers, in / the blurry horizon where revolution awaits us. / Sure, we have failed, but we have to keep imagining, / we have to keep exceeding our conditions of / possibility, late capitalism's usual formulations! / We can still become what we will one day touch!”
“Dear former / lovers, I'm sorry I was always finding ways to be / less present. I'm sorry that I was more aroused / by an image than real life. When I write about us / in the past tense we seem more alive. When I write / about us in the present tense the poem becomes / a eulogy. As far as I know, all of us are still living. It / doesn't have to hurt to dwell in someone else's image.”
“We spent most weekends / together; we created our own pleasure principle, / our own interchangeable reality where every gesture / and gaze vibrated with a latent sexuality. I broke up / with him because he was sexting other men. I could not / imagine a nexus of erotic collaboration, I wanted / our world to be small and enchanted.”
“Indulging in the image of someone elses queer magnificence / can be a necessary act.”
“I became a homosexual because / pleasure was an aspiration, a structure of feeling I / knew as the vague shape of what would save my life. / I now know that to be a homosexual is to be a theorist / and an architect and an archivist and, of course, a poet. / We have to reject our negation, we have to harness / our love and joy in the act of utopian transformation.”
“I still / don't think we are in that unimaginable place / that is safe for men who desire men. Sure, the apps / turned the city into one big sexual fantasy, but / my suspicion is that there's something more joyfully resonant out there, among flowers, in / the blurry horizon where revolution awaits us. / Sure, we have failed, but we have to keep imagining, / we have to keep exceeding our conditions of / possibility, late capitalism's usual formulations! / We can still become what we will one day touch!”
“Dear former / lovers, I'm sorry I was always finding ways to be / less present. I'm sorry that I was more aroused / by an image than real life. When I write about us / in the past tense we seem more alive. When I write / about us in the present tense the poem becomes / a eulogy. As far as I know, all of us are still living. It / doesn't have to hurt to dwell in someone else's image.”
“We spent most weekends / together; we created our own pleasure principle, / our own interchangeable reality where every gesture / and gaze vibrated with a latent sexuality. I broke up / with him because he was sexting other men. I could not / imagine a nexus of erotic collaboration, I wanted / our world to be small and enchanted.”
December 27, 2025
I tore the bookmark given to me with the purchase into many tiny pieces and used them as bookmarks to flag so many poems in this slender collection that it's almost as many bookmarks as pages. Some mark the poems I want to engage in my dissertation (from "Endnotes:" "What do I want from literature anyway? / A new way of living, a new way to talk / about the trees that doesn't endanger them"), but most of them flag the poems I want to keep coming back to, like "The Past Tense:" "I do not have a / mother tongue. / A mouth without / a mother tongue / speaks in each echoes. / My words ricochet. / I chase after them, / even though / they're mostly / dying light."
This collection, like the title indicates, is very much an idea, or a set of them, about how to structure responses--and response-abilities--to Indigenous vitalities, temporalities, memories as cumulative and not only contingent: "The past is not an admirable text; it is a mausoleum. / I want to call attention to the dead, to the barely / living. I want to remind you of the gravity and / the challenge of responding to the world, of simply / being in the world" (from "The Cruising Utopia Sonnets," Sonnet 10).
Using the sonnet form in "The Cruising Utopia Sonnets" to explore Indigenous temporalities and queerness is a clever nod to the sonnet's literary tradition, and is also, oof, heartwrenching. Belcourt knowingly recalls Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnets ("O thou my lovely boy, who in thy pow'r / Dost hold time's fickle glass, his fickle hour, / Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st, / Thy lover's with'ring, as thy sweet self grow'st" (Sonnet 126)). Belcourt even writes, "I was not a beautiful young man" (from Sonnet 12), which I read as his confrontation of the notion of the ideal poetic subject and a recognition of Indigiqueerness.
This collection is about all the acts of repair that hold a person's fragments together. Belcourt continues to produce magic.
This collection, like the title indicates, is very much an idea, or a set of them, about how to structure responses--and response-abilities--to Indigenous vitalities, temporalities, memories as cumulative and not only contingent: "The past is not an admirable text; it is a mausoleum. / I want to call attention to the dead, to the barely / living. I want to remind you of the gravity and / the challenge of responding to the world, of simply / being in the world" (from "The Cruising Utopia Sonnets," Sonnet 10).
Using the sonnet form in "The Cruising Utopia Sonnets" to explore Indigenous temporalities and queerness is a clever nod to the sonnet's literary tradition, and is also, oof, heartwrenching. Belcourt knowingly recalls Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnets ("O thou my lovely boy, who in thy pow'r / Dost hold time's fickle glass, his fickle hour, / Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st, / Thy lover's with'ring, as thy sweet self grow'st" (Sonnet 126)). Belcourt even writes, "I was not a beautiful young man" (from Sonnet 12), which I read as his confrontation of the notion of the ideal poetic subject and a recognition of Indigiqueerness.
This collection is about all the acts of repair that hold a person's fragments together. Belcourt continues to produce magic.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews