Overview

A Time Magazine 'Must-Read Book' 2025 Daring and vulnerable, this is the highly anticipated new collection from Griffin Poetry Prize winner Billy-Ray Belcourt. In The Idea of An Entire Life, Belcourt delivers an intimate examination of twenty-first-century anguish, love, queerness, and political possibility. Through lyric verse, sonnets, fieldnotes, and fragments, the poems—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes slyly humorous—are always finely crafted, putting to use 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 grief and awe. ‘When I wrote my first book of poetry,’ reflects Belcourt, ‘I wrote from a place of desperation. I wanted very desperately to live a full queer Indigenous life and I wasn’t sure if I would attain it. The Idea of an Entire Life began with the realization that I have that life now and so I wanted to think through the ways a queer Indigenous life is hampered by history but nonetheless full of possibility. What will the rest of my life make available to me? How has the twentieth century indelibly shaped me and my community? The book is about my reserve in northern Alberta, how the past tailgates me wherever I go. It’s also about my coming-into-being as a queer Indigenous man and how I’ve tried to remake my conditions of living to enable flourishing and possibility.’

Full Product Details

9781800174917

Table of Contents

Reviews

'These poems are achingly beautiful.' — Bhanu Kapil 'This was beautiful. I am wowed, again. There were moments when I lost my breath.' — Joshua Whitehead, author of Making Love with the Land 'No one breaks your heart as elegantly as Billy-Ray Belcourt.' — Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster 'Billy-Ray Belcourt is proving himself to be a literary genius. His poetry and prose are tender and brutal and brilliant.' — Heather O'Neill, author of The Capital of Dreams 'There are few writers who can authentically capture the beauty and complexity of Indigenous existence both on the rez and in the city like Billy-Ray Belcourt.' — Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves

'These poems are achingly beautiful.' Bhanu Kapil 'This was beautiful. I am wowed, again. There were moments when I lost my breath.' Joshua Whitehead, author of Making Love with the Land 'No one breaks your heart as elegantly as Billy-Ray Belcourt.' Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster 'Billy-Ray Belcourt is proving himself to be a literary genius. His poetry and prose are tender and brutal and brilliant.' Heather O'Neill, author of The Capital of Dreams 'There are few writers who can authentically capture the beauty and complexity of Indigenous existence both on the rez and in the city like Billy-Ray Belcourt.' Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves 'These poems communicate love, grief, dreams of home, intimacy and death with wit and grace, and are peppered with breathtaking turns of phrase and near-acrobatic thought.' Dave Coates, Poetry Book Society

Author Information

Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in North West Alberta, Canada. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is the author of six books, three of poetry and three of prose. He is the youngest-ever winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his debut collection This Wound is a World. In 2015, he was named the first-ever First Nations Rhodes Scholar from Canada. He has been long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award and a two-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. He has been nominated for several major literary awards in Canada.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available