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parsed(2022-05-11) - pubdate: 2022-05-11
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pub date: 1652245200
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You Might Be Sorry You Read This

May 11, 2022 | Trade paperback
ISBN: 9781772126037
$19.99
Reader Reward Price: $17.99 info
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Description

You Might Be Sorry You Read This is a stunning debut, revealing how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful. A poetic memoir that looks unflinchingly at childhood trauma (both incestuous rape and surviving exposure in extreme cold), it also tells the story of coming to terms with a hidden Indigenous identity when the poet discovered her Métis heritage at age 38. This collection is a journey of pain, belonging, hope, and resilience. The confessional poems are polished yet unpretentious, often edgy but humorous; they explore trauma yet prioritize the poet's story. Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, these narratives carry weight. They tell us "You need / only be the simple / expression of the divine / intent / that is your life." There is a lifetime in these poems.
About the Book:
oYou Might Be Sorry You Read This is a stunning debut, revealing how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful.
oA poetic memoir that looks unflinchingly at childhood trauma and the writer's experience of PTSD.
oIt also tells the story of coming to terms with a hidden Indigenous identity; the poet discovered her Métis heritage at age 38.
oThis collection is a journey of pain, belonging, hope, and resilience.
oThe confessional poems are polished yet unpretentious, often edgy but humorous; they explore trauma yet prioritize the poet's story.
oHonouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, these narratives carry weight.
oThere is a lifetime in these poems.
oAuthor website: www.michellepoirierbrown.ca

"I was raised in a family that acknowledged my mother's Ukrainian heritage, but was oblivious to my father's hidden Indigenous identity. As a child, I was sometimes asked if I was Chinese. As an adult, there was a quality to my encounters with Indigenous people that I didn't understand--until I learned to see myself as my husband, neighbours, and colleagues already saw me."

Audience:
This book fits with confessional and trauma writing. The most obvious market is the literary community and readers, particularly people who read Indigenous poetry. The accessible style will appeal to people who don't usually read poetry, and the book can be expected to generate a readership among Métis people, among settlers who have an interest in deepening their understanding of Indigenous experience, and feminists and people who identify as queer. Another key market is university instructors teaching Literature, Creative Writing, Gender Studies, Women's Studies, and Indigenous Studies.

About the Poet:
Michelle Poirier Brown is an internationally-published poet, performer, and photographer. She is nêhiýaw-iskwêw and a citizen of the Métis Nation. A feminist activist and retired federal treaty negotiator, Poirier Brown now lives in Lekwungen territory (Victoria, BC).

About this Author

Michelle Poirier Brown is an internationally published poet, performer, and photographer. She is nêhiýaw-iskwêw and a citizen of the Métis Nation. A feminist activist, now retired from careers as a speech writer, conflict analyst, and federal treaty negotiator, she writes full-time and has taken up birdwatching. She lives on unceded syilx territory in Vernon, BC.

ISBN: 9781772126037
Format: Trade paperback
Series: Robert Kroetsch
Pages: 104
Publisher: University of Alberta Press
Published: 2022-05-11

Reviews

Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, the poems in Michelle Poirier Brown's You Might Be Sorry You Read This reveal how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful.--49th Shelf, February 28, 2022
#9 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, September 18, 2022
"This is a book that refuses secrets, that seeks to transform dark and unsettling experiences by confronting them with clarity and fury." Melanie Brannagan Frederiksen, Winnipeg Free Press, July 23, 2022
#10 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, June 5, 2023
"An excellent job of carrying the reader along... [The author's voice] has an off-hand tone to it. It is practical, pragmatic, states its case. There is strength and indignance in it." Jury comments, SCWES Book Awards for BC Authors

"Michelle Poirier Brown's first collection of poetry is accomplished and gripping. In her five-decade story, perceptions, denial, emotional embroilments and poignant tenderness are peeled back and examined. As the narrative builds, we encounter the sheer alchemical power of poetry. This is rare. You Might Be Sorry You Read This will change you." Betsy Warland, Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss
"One of the functions of poetry is to make you uncomfortable." This epigraph, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, begins Michelle Poirier Brown's debut collection--a collection that intends, unapologetically, to discomfort the reader. With unflinching precision and the exactness of a fine poet's eye, Poirier Brown challenges her readers to encounter not only her childhood trauma but, ultimately, the power of her self--her late-discovered Métis identity, her navigation of PTSD, her unwillingness to settle for less than the truth. In the final poem, "Self-Portrait of the Poet," she concludes, "go ahead. look. / Look as long as you like." Invitation or command, it's a hard look Poirier Brown offers. It may make readers uncomfortable. But they won't be sorry."
--Laura Apol, author of A Fine Yellow Dust
"In her compelling debut collection, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, Michelle Poirier Brown pulls you into an intimate place of unflinching honesty. Brown's poetic memoir confronts, explores, and digests hard truths. There is no sitting quietly on the sidelines for the reader. Her book claims your engagement. And as the speaker awakens to herself, the poems ring out with new confidence and resonance. I predict emphatically you will be grateful you read this." Susan Alexander, Nothing You Can Carry

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