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Blood
Blood follows a Two-Spirit Indigenous person as they navigate urbanity, queerness, and a kaleidoscope of dreams, memory, and kinship.
Conceived in the same world as their acclaimed debut, Bones, Tyler Pennock's Blood centres around a protagonist who at first has difficulty knowing the difference between connection and pain, and we move with them as they explore what it means to want. Pennock weaves longing, intimacy, and Anishinaabe relationalities to recentre and rethink their speaker's relationship to the living-never forgetting non-human kin.
This book is a look at how deep history is represented in the everyday; it also tries to answer how one person can challenge the impacts of that history. It is a reminder that Indigenous people carry the impacts of colonial history and wrestle with them constantly. Blood explores the relationships between spring and winter, ice and water, static things and things beginning to move, and what emerges in the thaw.
A music as sensitive as it is revelatory. - Canisia Lubrin, author of The Dyzgraphxst
Conceived in the same world as their acclaimed debut, Bones, Tyler Pennock's Blood centres around a protagonist who at first has difficulty knowing the difference between connection and pain, and we move with them as they explore what it means to want. Pennock weaves longing, intimacy, and Anishinaabe relationalities to recentre and rethink their speaker's relationship to the living-never forgetting non-human kin.
This book is a look at how deep history is represented in the everyday; it also tries to answer how one person can challenge the impacts of that history. It is a reminder that Indigenous people carry the impacts of colonial history and wrestle with them constantly. Blood explores the relationships between spring and winter, ice and water, static things and things beginning to move, and what emerges in the thaw.
A music as sensitive as it is revelatory. - Canisia Lubrin, author of The Dyzgraphxst
104 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2022
2 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 6, 2025
big time Alan vibes
September 27, 2022
I read this as an ARC from edelweiss.
Pain, anger, confusion, survival--elements all of humanity shares--come into conflict with society's demands for purity, joy, and conformity in this moving compilation of poems written by Tyler Pennock, an Indigenous LGBTQIA+ individual.
There's something about poetry that comes from the soul, from a place of vulnerability, from a place of honesty, and self.
Blood has a heartbeat.
In reading Blood, I came to know Tyler, their hurt, their hopes, their dreams, I saw him reach, and fall, and reach again, struggling under the weight of cultural suppression, identity oppression, and heartache. And through it all, I learned something more about myself too.
As a white woman reading this, it made me reconsider my beliefs--my misconceptions--of what Indigenous individuals experience in a colonialist world; the injustices, expectations, limitations, the suffering, how even hundreds of years has not eased the crushing impact of our past, and our present is even more suffocating in many ways for many surviving in a system designed to advantage the few.
I was moved by Blood. It's eloquent, at times harsh, and the realities of the poet are deeply expressed in every line. It's raw, powerful, and I was drawn into its rhythm, connecting with its themes and messages, learning to feel the emotional notes. Learning to understand and acknowledge Tyler's pain. Coming to appreciate and admire Indigenous culture in a way that's never been presented to me before.
I'm not an expert on poetry. Sometimes I understand what I'm reading, and sometimes I don't. Some poems just seem to rhyme without any meaning or feeling underneath, but Blood has a heartbeat of its own. Blood is one person's experience, but it can be a platform for many. There is a message for everyone, both similar and dissimilar, and that is what made these poems so amazing.
If you enjoy poetry or aren't sure if you do and just want to read something that makes you think, makes you feel, makes you want to be a better human, then I highly recommend Blood. It's simply beautiful. It's courageous.
Pain, anger, confusion, survival--elements all of humanity shares--come into conflict with society's demands for purity, joy, and conformity in this moving compilation of poems written by Tyler Pennock, an Indigenous LGBTQIA+ individual.
There's something about poetry that comes from the soul, from a place of vulnerability, from a place of honesty, and self.
Blood has a heartbeat.
In reading Blood, I came to know Tyler, their hurt, their hopes, their dreams, I saw him reach, and fall, and reach again, struggling under the weight of cultural suppression, identity oppression, and heartache. And through it all, I learned something more about myself too.
As a white woman reading this, it made me reconsider my beliefs--my misconceptions--of what Indigenous individuals experience in a colonialist world; the injustices, expectations, limitations, the suffering, how even hundreds of years has not eased the crushing impact of our past, and our present is even more suffocating in many ways for many surviving in a system designed to advantage the few.
I was moved by Blood. It's eloquent, at times harsh, and the realities of the poet are deeply expressed in every line. It's raw, powerful, and I was drawn into its rhythm, connecting with its themes and messages, learning to feel the emotional notes. Learning to understand and acknowledge Tyler's pain. Coming to appreciate and admire Indigenous culture in a way that's never been presented to me before.
I'm not an expert on poetry. Sometimes I understand what I'm reading, and sometimes I don't. Some poems just seem to rhyme without any meaning or feeling underneath, but Blood has a heartbeat of its own. Blood is one person's experience, but it can be a platform for many. There is a message for everyone, both similar and dissimilar, and that is what made these poems so amazing.
If you enjoy poetry or aren't sure if you do and just want to read something that makes you think, makes you feel, makes you want to be a better human, then I highly recommend Blood. It's simply beautiful. It's courageous.
February 12, 2023
I am a slow reader and rarely finish books in a single day, but found I was swept into the poetry of Blood in a way that compelled me to keep reading until I came to the last page. That probably has something to do with the structure of the book, set up as one long flowing poem. I’m sure I will go back and read it again more than once (I have pages flagged to revisit), to linger on the visceral imagery and insights into human vulnerability, healing, and learning that the book is rich with.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews