The Idea of an Entire Life

“Native Canadian poet, novelist, and essayist Belcourt (A Minor Chorus, 2022) dives into Indigenous identity by excavating language, land, history, and the human body in deft, direct lyrics.”
—Booklist

“Beautiful. I am wowed, again. There were moments when I lost my breath. The Idea of an Entire Life engineers a lexicon for us to decipher what it means to be wedged between a staling futurism and the em dash of colonial chronicle.”
—Joshua Whitehead, author of Making Love with the Land

“To read The Idea of an Entire Life is to experience genre as a place between landscapes but also beyond them: horizon as ‘line break,’ infrastructure as ‘wound,’ ‘an image of a forest someone else/was supposed to know by heart.’ Belcourt writes what’s already broken, breaking in real time, ‘in order to repair it.’”
—Bhanu Kapil

“The Idea of an Entire Life reaches toward the edge of language and returns to us a map of becoming. These poems slip between forms, between ache and awe, between theory and touch. The book is an homage to and a field guide for a queer Indigenous past, present, and future. Just when I needed something to survive the world now, Belcourt offers us a vision where life might be something tender, magic, and deeply radiant.”
—Jake Skeets, author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers