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This Wound Is a World
The new edition of a prize-winning memoir-in-poems, a meditation on life as a queer Indigenous man—available for the first time in the U.S.
“i am one of those hopeless romantics who wants every blowjob to be transformative.” Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut poetry collection, This Wound Is a World, is “a prayer against breaking,” writes trans Anishinaabe and Métis poet Gwen Benaway. “By way of an expansive poetic grace, Belcourt merges a soft beauty with the hardness of colonization to shape a love song that dances Indigenous bodies back into being. This book is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Part manifesto, part memoir, This Wound Is a World is an invitation to “cut a hole in the sky to world inside.” Belcourt issues a call to turn to love and sex to understand how Indigenous peoples shoulder their sadness and pain without giving up on the future. His poems upset genre and play with form, scavenging for a decolonial kind of heaven where “everyone is at least a little gay.” Presented here with several additional poems, this prize-winning collection pursues fresh directions for queer and decolonial theory as it opens uncharted paths for Indigenous poetry in North America. It is theory that sings, poetry that marshals experience in the service of a larger critique of the coloniality of the present and the tyranny of sexual and racial “norms.”
“i am one of those hopeless romantics who wants every blowjob to be transformative.” Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut poetry collection, This Wound Is a World, is “a prayer against breaking,” writes trans Anishinaabe and Métis poet Gwen Benaway. “By way of an expansive poetic grace, Belcourt merges a soft beauty with the hardness of colonization to shape a love song that dances Indigenous bodies back into being. This book is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Part manifesto, part memoir, This Wound Is a World is an invitation to “cut a hole in the sky to world inside.” Belcourt issues a call to turn to love and sex to understand how Indigenous peoples shoulder their sadness and pain without giving up on the future. His poems upset genre and play with form, scavenging for a decolonial kind of heaven where “everyone is at least a little gay.” Presented here with several additional poems, this prize-winning collection pursues fresh directions for queer and decolonial theory as it opens uncharted paths for Indigenous poetry in North America. It is theory that sings, poetry that marshals experience in the service of a larger critique of the coloniality of the present and the tyranny of sexual and racial “norms.”
72 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2017
57 people are currently reading
7228 people want to read
About the author
Billy-Ray Belcourt
11 books785 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).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 398 reviews
January 8, 2024
Belcourt writes from the visceral position of queer Indigenous life. He understands that the work of language is to expand our capacity for survival. To break open, rupture, make possible, unmake and remake the world away from what it has been made. This Wound Is a World calls on us to stretch, to imagine, to struggle for more bearable worlds. To refuse colonial annihilation and painstakingly manifest beauty and tenderness in our lives and with our intimates.
I loved this collection of poetry, and once I finished it, I wanted to immediately put it in a care package and post it to several dear friends.
I loved this collection of poetry, and once I finished it, I wanted to immediately put it in a care package and post it to several dear friends.
March 29, 2020
i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too.
September 6, 2020
There is so much being said in these poems: gay love, oppression of indigenous people - both now and historically, current events, and did I mention love?
Most of these poems are easily readable with the message clearly seen:
in eighth grade i date a girl whose parents think i am not manly enough for her. i am relieved to be neither wildfire nor prison cell.
Some others needed me to do google-search for the cree word or the current event being referenced, which made me learn even more:
what I know:
colten boushie
a ceremonial fire keeper
was shot while sitting in the backseat of a car with a flat tire,
and
it took an ocean to break us
And there were some deep poems here that you can feel the meaning only after reading it again and allowing yourself to pause and think.
god must be an indian, he said
for so many of you speak like the sky.
It is interesting as I write this review and try to find those 'deep poems' that I found 'difficult'. They are amazingly more clear as I read them for the third time here! (I always read each poem twice - at least - when I first put my eyes on it.) I love how good poetry keeps yielding insights with each read!
There is SO much that I'd like to quote here in in this review. I am thankful that I bought a copy of this book so I can read it again and again.
i bought a pin that says LOVE
and i wear it on my jean jacket as a cry for help.
i asked all 908 of my facebook friends
to tell me they loved me
and they did
and i believed them
i am so sad that i burrow into the absence of every boy who has held me
i kiss him knowing that when i wake up i will be in a body differently
i am trying to figure out how to be in the world without wanting it. this, perhaps, is what it means to be native
colonialism broke us, and we're still figuring out how to love and be broken at the same time
the first time he told me i was beautiful, i thought he was lying. i thought beauty was a plot in a story i had been written out of a long time ago.
what happens when wounds start to work like bandages?
queer. definition: knowing your body is both too much and not enough for this world.
investment is the social practice whereby one risks losing it all to be a part of something that feels like release. lose everything with me.
when he holds my hand in public i think someone might call us faggots. i wish they would.
i die each time he tells me he loves me. he taught me how to live forever
i call my kookum to tell her i have a boyfriend and that she will meet him in ten minutes. i piece together a world inside the quiet before her next breath and name it earth
we've known for weeks that this wasn't going to work out. but we tried anyways, like all indians do.
i lay on his chest knowing the best and worst thing about him is the way his skin protests forgetting.
Most of these poems are easily readable with the message clearly seen:
in eighth grade i date a girl whose parents think i am not manly enough for her. i am relieved to be neither wildfire nor prison cell.
Some others needed me to do google-search for the cree word or the current event being referenced, which made me learn even more:
what I know:
colten boushie
a ceremonial fire keeper
was shot while sitting in the backseat of a car with a flat tire,
and
it took an ocean to break us
And there were some deep poems here that you can feel the meaning only after reading it again and allowing yourself to pause and think.
god must be an indian, he said
for so many of you speak like the sky.
It is interesting as I write this review and try to find those 'deep poems' that I found 'difficult'. They are amazingly more clear as I read them for the third time here! (I always read each poem twice - at least - when I first put my eyes on it.) I love how good poetry keeps yielding insights with each read!
There is SO much that I'd like to quote here in in this review. I am thankful that I bought a copy of this book so I can read it again and again.
i bought a pin that says LOVE
and i wear it on my jean jacket as a cry for help.
i asked all 908 of my facebook friends
to tell me they loved me
and they did
and i believed them
i am so sad that i burrow into the absence of every boy who has held me
i kiss him knowing that when i wake up i will be in a body differently
i am trying to figure out how to be in the world without wanting it. this, perhaps, is what it means to be native
colonialism broke us, and we're still figuring out how to love and be broken at the same time
the first time he told me i was beautiful, i thought he was lying. i thought beauty was a plot in a story i had been written out of a long time ago.
what happens when wounds start to work like bandages?
queer. definition: knowing your body is both too much and not enough for this world.
investment is the social practice whereby one risks losing it all to be a part of something that feels like release. lose everything with me.
when he holds my hand in public i think someone might call us faggots. i wish they would.
i die each time he tells me he loves me. he taught me how to live forever
i call my kookum to tell her i have a boyfriend and that she will meet him in ten minutes. i piece together a world inside the quiet before her next breath and name it earth
we've known for weeks that this wasn't going to work out. but we tried anyways, like all indians do.
i lay on his chest knowing the best and worst thing about him is the way his skin protests forgetting.
Read
January 1, 2022i am trying to figure out how to be in the world without wanting it. this, perhaps, is what it means to be native.
There were a few poems that resonated with me, particularly the ones about indigeneity and its tragic coexistence with violence, but sadly, this collection’s writing style for the most part was a complete miss for me. (I feel terrible saying this, but some poems really read like
September 8, 2018
Billy-Ray Belcourt is a member of the Driftpile Cree First Nations People of Alberta, Canada. So I expected his poetry to contemplate the indigenous world, and it does. When I started the book, though, I didn't expect a volume of love poetry, which it is. Not only that but homosexual love poetry describing lonely connections made in Alberta juke joints while a desolate winter wind blows the spaces between the buildings free of trash, or the kind made through online contact. These poems sing that experience but also the ghost of First Nations lives still close to the earth and still in possession of a domain of words celebrating indigeneity but expressed through the hard bodies of men. These poems are wonderful, breathtaking.
This Wound Is a World won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize in June, and it deserves it. I thought this impressive.
This Wound Is a World won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize in June, and it deserves it. I thought this impressive.
November 9, 2024
how fitting, for example, that we coax the celestially departed
into the coffins of us!
the plot twist is that we too are like stars:
even after death, the human body emits photons,
invisible to the naked eye.
think, then, of the hanged men,
who went on to exist, if only for a fraction of a second, as light
inside those war-torn children.
Darn my inability to talk about poetry in any eloquent way. All I want to say is: this is about love, un-bodies, being sad (maybe a more eloquent version is: the transformative power of sadness), Indigenous and really queer.
I simply loved it and that was before the Epilogue bit, where Belcourt talks about themes and references and I was able to see even better how layered and thoughtful and rich these poems are. A new favorite, for sure. The audiobook, narrated by the poet, was also fantastic!
into the coffins of us!
the plot twist is that we too are like stars:
even after death, the human body emits photons,
invisible to the naked eye.
think, then, of the hanged men,
who went on to exist, if only for a fraction of a second, as light
inside those war-torn children.
Darn my inability to talk about poetry in any eloquent way. All I want to say is: this is about love, un-bodies, being sad (maybe a more eloquent version is: the transformative power of sadness), Indigenous and really queer.
I simply loved it and that was before the Epilogue bit, where Belcourt talks about themes and references and I was able to see even better how layered and thoughtful and rich these poems are. A new favorite, for sure. The audiobook, narrated by the poet, was also fantastic!
March 5, 2020
“Colonialism. Definition: turning bodies into cages that no one has the keys for.”
“Wonder how many deaths it takes for a country to call itself god.”
This hit me like a ton of bricks
“Wonder how many deaths it takes for a country to call itself god.”
This hit me like a ton of bricks
October 8, 2018
One of the best works of poetry to come out of the country in recent years. A joyful, poignant, painful exploration of indigeneity. Belcourt is a genius at communicating the truths of his own body and its wonderful grace in a broken world.
March 9, 2022
Hands down one of the best, if not the best, collection of poetry I’ve read
Read
April 30, 2024"there are days when i want to wear nail polish more than i want to protest. but then i remember that i wasn’t meant to live life here and i paint my nails because 1) it looks cute and 2) it is a protest. and even though i know i am too queer to be sacred anymore, i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too."
November 25, 2023
Belcourt’s writing is an arrow straight to the heart. It bears a raw vulnerability that is nothing short of breathtaking. I’m insatiable when it comes to feeling a need to read absolutely everything he’s written.
———————————————————————————
“make my mouth into a jar spit inside me
throw me into the air leave me there
pretend that this is love. whisper: tonight, we will be children
tomorrow, the feeling of being in two bodies at once. pray, if it gives you a tongue a book for words that fall flat
a book that does not like to be written in. where do you come from?
i am from the back alley of the world.”
“i wanted our tongues to sketch a different tomorrow:
one in which we might know how to love better, again.
I wanted him to fuck me, so i could finally begin to heal.”
“you notice the regularity with which others avoid confrontation vis-à-vis racial oppression. this is how they think themselves outside of the world. you don't know what it is like to be in a body without it feeling like a death trap. at your desk you watch a news clip of a truck running over native protestors in reno, nevada. no one dies this time. the west is nothing if not a string of murders incriminated by a series of attempted murders.”
“some more than others know that all objects can be put to violent use. if our bodies could rust, we would be falling apart.”
———————————————————————————
“make my mouth into a jar spit inside me
throw me into the air leave me there
pretend that this is love. whisper: tonight, we will be children
tomorrow, the feeling of being in two bodies at once. pray, if it gives you a tongue a book for words that fall flat
a book that does not like to be written in. where do you come from?
i am from the back alley of the world.”
“i wanted our tongues to sketch a different tomorrow:
one in which we might know how to love better, again.
I wanted him to fuck me, so i could finally begin to heal.”
“you notice the regularity with which others avoid confrontation vis-à-vis racial oppression. this is how they think themselves outside of the world. you don't know what it is like to be in a body without it feeling like a death trap. at your desk you watch a news clip of a truck running over native protestors in reno, nevada. no one dies this time. the west is nothing if not a string of murders incriminated by a series of attempted murders.”
“some more than others know that all objects can be put to violent use. if our bodies could rust, we would be falling apart.”
November 24, 2022
“queer. definition: knowing your body is both too much and not enough for this world.”
Belcourt put his whole being into each of these poems and I ate all of them up. How can I possibly critique something this raw and true? I’m not normally into poetry but lately I’ve been getting a craving for it. I want to be left speechless and maybe a little confused. I want my world to be expanded to the experiences of others and I want to read about experiences so similar to my own.
The works here speak about the brutal honesty of having a body. What is a body? Why are we stuck in it? What can we do while we are stuck in it to make existing easier? Billy is queer and indigenous, from Alberta of all places. There is a lot of heaviness that comes with that identity and he has bravely shared it with the world.
“i am desperate. desperate to figure out how someone like me is still here”
There were some lines in this that just made you take pause. I can’t imagine letting everyone read such vulnerable parts of myself. Belcourt is still quite young too. Not even in his thirties yet and his works are so well known. I appreciated this book and will be reading the rest of his stuff!
October 17, 2019
3.5, rounded up.
I don't read much poetry (ok, virtually none), as it's not a genre I either much enjoy nor find easy to parse meaning from, and I actually came across this in searching for more about the author's upcoming autobiography, which I think I will enjoy more. THAT said, these are for the most part NOT difficult poems to understand, and there are some beautiful turns of phrase here. It is also impossible not to be moved by Belcourt's explication of what it means and FEELS like to be both queer and indigenous in this modern world. I COULD have done without some of the academic and semiotic underpinnings here and there, and both the preface and epilogue made me feel I was back in grad school. I'm glad I gave this a chance though.
My sincere thanks to Netgalley and the University of Minnesota Press for granting me this ARC in exchange for this honest review.
I don't read much poetry (ok, virtually none), as it's not a genre I either much enjoy nor find easy to parse meaning from, and I actually came across this in searching for more about the author's upcoming autobiography, which I think I will enjoy more. THAT said, these are for the most part NOT difficult poems to understand, and there are some beautiful turns of phrase here. It is also impossible not to be moved by Belcourt's explication of what it means and FEELS like to be both queer and indigenous in this modern world. I COULD have done without some of the academic and semiotic underpinnings here and there, and both the preface and epilogue made me feel I was back in grad school. I'm glad I gave this a chance though.
My sincere thanks to Netgalley and the University of Minnesota Press for granting me this ARC in exchange for this honest review.
September 15, 2019
-Disclaimer: I won this book for free through Goodreads giveaways in exchange for an honest review.-
Not for me. This book wasn't what I thought it would be. And it doesn't align with what I believe in. In my opinion, the writing is just dreadful. And it is very vulgar. The whole book is idiotic, the metaphors are absurd, & I do not relate with it. It was extremely bad-- I don't know what else to say.
Not for me. This book wasn't what I thought it would be. And it doesn't align with what I believe in. In my opinion, the writing is just dreadful. And it is very vulgar. The whole book is idiotic, the metaphors are absurd, & I do not relate with it. It was extremely bad-- I don't know what else to say.
May 1, 2018
The language was a bit academic in places for my liking, made it hard for me to get into. But, I think this would be a great companion to Birdie by Tracey Lindberg. I saw that Belcourt thanked her in the acknowledgements, and it made sense - the whole idea of having a body vs going beyond what's physical is so important in Birdie. I just prefer fiction to poetry in this case.
March 23, 2021
Probably my third read through of this book but just logging it now.
It will be one I come back to over and over again.
I can’t say eloquently enough what comes out of these words from Billy Ray. Just read them. Then, read them again.
It will be one I come back to over and over again.
I can’t say eloquently enough what comes out of these words from Billy Ray. Just read them. Then, read them again.
July 24, 2018
I could read this book 100 times and I still wouldn’t be sick of it. This hit me in my feelings like a trailer hitch thrown out of a moving car. My new favourite poet!
August 31, 2022
“Here, no one is birthed / only pieced together.”
February 26, 2024
A breathtaking set of poems about queerness and indigeneity, frequently interrogating systems of cisheteronormativity and colonialism. A beautiful read :)
June 15, 2024
billy-ray belcourt welcome to my autobuy list
August 13, 2025
Billy-Ray Belcourt might actually be one of my all-time favorite writers.
May 3, 2020
Just about as good as NDN Coping Mechanisms. Since this was his debut, I'm thoroughly impressed! Can't wait for more poetry from him. More in depth of his style in my review of his second book which I read about a week ago. This one focused more on grief, the body, and sexuality whereas the other was centred around historical and contemporary events and sources and social criticism. Loved them both and heartily recommend to fans of poetry. This is definitely a poet I'll be keeping my eyes on.
June 10, 2019
this poetry collection hit me, punched me, made me cry, and made me uncomfortable, and those are all really great things, because I think that that is what this collection is supposed to do.
November 5, 2022
i feel like insta poetry wasn’t the right medium for this…loved the preface and epilogue though
July 1, 2023
"I am one of those hopeless romantics that wants every blowjob to be transformative" is one of many excellent lines in this queer poetry collection
December 23, 2021
The Creator Is Trans
the creator is trans
and the earth is a psychology experiment
to determine how quickly
we mistake a body for anything
but a crime scene
the product of older crime scenes.
there is a heaven
and it is a place called gay.
gay as in let’s hold up a world together.
If our bodies could rust, we would be falling apart
[...] oh, i got one!
barbara kentner, 34, was hit in the stomach by a trailer hitch thrown at her from a moving car. after throwing the hitch, a blond eighteen-year-old man yelled oh, i got one. her sister saw and heard everything. no one should have to watch a world explode like that. no one should have to watch someone become unbodied like that. the cbc reported that the police did not investigate the assault as a hate crime because there “were no comments which made any reference to race or ethnicity.”
oh, i got one!
it is basic syntax. one is the object and she is at the mercy of the i. this is a semiotics of indigeneity that routes us into death worlds. in the mouths of the grim reapers of the world, grammar is excited by violence.
oh, i got one!
what did he see when he made her into a ghost? what is a ghost but the form we take when we are pulled outside of our bodies?
The Oxford Journal
ix.
you want to capture the sense of a present that is not quite the present, a present that thickens in the underbelly of social reality. you stalk the prefix un-, hoping that it will let you see glitches, that it will unearth a hole in the ground, something of a gateway to a world you are spotting any- and everywhere, a world you are spotting nowhere. you are sad, so at first you believe that an un- can be found in the bodies of men. you begin looking for doors, not enclosures. doors without locks. doors that swing open. soon, you decide that doors are a transference of cacophonous feeling; they
are ecological, unseen. leanne simpson: “she is the only doorway to this world.” the un- is a woman like your kookum who rips open time.
November 22, 2020
Some lines and verses really touched me, some brought me to tears. 💔
Others just confused me. Maybe they are written in a confused way, maybe it was due to my missing or wrong interpretation or maybe it was simply the foreign language barrier.
However, someday I will definitely reread this little gem of Poetry and Native Studies and I am sure that I will discover a lot that got lost to me this time around.
Others just confused me. Maybe they are written in a confused way, maybe it was due to my missing or wrong interpretation or maybe it was simply the foreign language barrier.
However, someday I will definitely reread this little gem of Poetry and Native Studies and I am sure that I will discover a lot that got lost to me this time around.
OKCUPID
......
which is to say that to be native and queer
is to sometimes forget how to love yourself
because no one else wants to
is to bandage the wounds with strangers
you met an hour ago
and count the number of times
they baptize you with words like
beautiful and handsome and sexy
because sex is the only ceremony
you have time for
these days
......
AN ELEGY FOR FLESH
do we have a word to make sense of this kind of loss:
a body feeling like it doesn't belong to you anymore?
sometimes the act of enduring itself becomes too much to bear
and you forget how to go on in a world that didn't want you in the first place.
how do you mourn something you can still see in the mirror?
February 19, 2024
here are some snippets I enjoyed:
“there are days when being in life feels like consenting to the cruelties that hold up the world.”
“remember: there is so much september before a country begins, so plant your fists in summer’s dying days. now, now you are ready to face love’s beastly maw and smile back.”
“one need but crane up at the night sky to be reminded of our funereal disposition. how fitting, for example, that we coax the celestially departed into the coffins of us! the plot twist is that we too are like stars: even after death, the human body emits photons, invisible to the naked eye.”
“there are days when being in life feels like consenting to the cruelties that hold up the world.”
“remember: there is so much september before a country begins, so plant your fists in summer’s dying days. now, now you are ready to face love’s beastly maw and smile back.”
“one need but crane up at the night sky to be reminded of our funereal disposition. how fitting, for example, that we coax the celestially departed into the coffins of us! the plot twist is that we too are like stars: even after death, the human body emits photons, invisible to the naked eye.”
November 20, 2025
“and even though i know i am too queer to be sacred anymore, i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too.” - from the poem Sacred
October 17, 2019
I was only to the table of contents before I knew I was probably going to like this poetry collection, and only to the second poem before I knew I had to get a copy for my 19 year-old for Christmas, and a copy for myself.
I'm in love with Billy-Ray Belcourt's way with words, which will no doubt offend, confuse, anger and annoy plenty of other readers. This is raw, beautiful, ugly, fabulous, inciting poetry of the best kind, where you stop to re-read lines again and again either because they're so artfully woven together or because you want to experience or understand them at a deeper and deeper level.
Sample excerpts...
from THERE IS A DIRT ROAD IN ME:
there is a dirt road in me.
it takes you to a place like a reserve but not
because there are only cree girls
and no one is falling apart in a bad way...
from SACRED:
...and i think about the time an elder told me to be a man and to decolonize in the same breath. there are days when i want to wear nail polish more than i want to protest. but then i remember that i wasn't meant to live life here and i paint my nails because 1) it looks cute and 2) it is a protest. and even though i know i am too queer to be sacred anymore i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too.
and from A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT:
in the 1990s,
a man raped a little girl
and the reserve caught fire.
it never stopped burning.
i mouthed the word justice
and then forgot how to speak.
if these walls could talk
they would sing country songs
about an entire generation of men who learned how to love on grindr...
After reviewing a host of Instagram throwaway poetry lately, it is so refreshing to read poems that make you think and squirm and feel and work for them.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
I'm in love with Billy-Ray Belcourt's way with words, which will no doubt offend, confuse, anger and annoy plenty of other readers. This is raw, beautiful, ugly, fabulous, inciting poetry of the best kind, where you stop to re-read lines again and again either because they're so artfully woven together or because you want to experience or understand them at a deeper and deeper level.
Sample excerpts...
from THERE IS A DIRT ROAD IN ME:
there is a dirt road in me.
it takes you to a place like a reserve but not
because there are only cree girls
and no one is falling apart in a bad way...
from SACRED:
...and i think about the time an elder told me to be a man and to decolonize in the same breath. there are days when i want to wear nail polish more than i want to protest. but then i remember that i wasn't meant to live life here and i paint my nails because 1) it looks cute and 2) it is a protest. and even though i know i am too queer to be sacred anymore i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too.
and from A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT:
in the 1990s,
a man raped a little girl
and the reserve caught fire.
it never stopped burning.
i mouthed the word justice
and then forgot how to speak.
if these walls could talk
they would sing country songs
about an entire generation of men who learned how to love on grindr...
After reviewing a host of Instagram throwaway poetry lately, it is so refreshing to read poems that make you think and squirm and feel and work for them.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 398 reviews