Holy Wild
By Gwen Benaway
2018
First Published
4.18
Average Rating
120
Number of Pages
Winner of the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry Finalist for the 2019 Trillium Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards - Transgender Poetry Category Finalist for the 2019 Publishing Triangle Awards - Trans and Gender-Variant Literature Category Longlisted for the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial Award In her third collection of poetry, Holy Wild, Gwen Benaway explores the complexities of being an Indigenous trans women in expansive lyric poems. She holds up the Indigenous trans body as a site of struggle, liberation, and beauty. A confessional poet, Benaway narrates her sexual and romantic intimacies with partners as well as her work to navigate the daily burden of transphobia and violence. She examines the intersections of Indigenous and trans experience through autobiographical poems and continues to speak to the legacy of abuse, violence, and colonial erasure that defines Canada. Her sparse lines, interwoven with English and Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), illustrate the wonder and power of Indigenous trans womanhood in motion. Holy Wild is not an easy book, as Benaway refuses to give any simple answers, but it is a profoundly vibrant and beautiful work filled with a transcendent grace. Praise for Holy Wild : "This is a heart wrenching, thought provoking, honest, and graceful walkthrough of trans realities both on the homeland and in urban settings." -Joshua Whitehead, author of Jonny Appleseed, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Full-Metal Indigiqueer "As the poet says, "they want one thing and I am many." This book is many things, and we are grateful." -Katherena Vermette, author of the award-winning novel The Break "Benaway conjures trans life in a place that is both prior to and in excess of the violence that mires it. It is the emotional infrastructure for something like freedom. Let Benaway lead you there." -Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of This Wound is a World
Avg Rating
4.18
Number of Ratings
407
5 STARS
50%
4 STARS
28%
3 STARS
15%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads
Author
Gwen Benaway
Author · 4 books
Gwen Benaway is a bisexual feminist Gemini trans girl of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She has published three collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead and Passage, and Holy Wild. Her fourth collection of poetry, Aperture, is forthcoming from Book*hug in Spring 2020. Her writing has been published in many national publications, including CBC Arts, Maclean’s Magazine, and the Globe and Mail. She is currently editing an anthology of Fantasy short stories by trans girl writers and writing a book of creative non-fiction, trans girl in love. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is always open to auditioning new Queer polyam feminist lovers, as long as they believe in Astrology and are not a Taurus. She is currently a Ph.D student at the University of Toronto in the Women and Gender Studies Institute.
