Passage
By Gwen Benaway
2016
First Published
4.37
Average Rating
120
Number of Pages
In her second collection of poetry, Passage, Gwen Benaway examines what it means to experience violence and speaks to the burden of survival. Traveling to Northern Ontario and across the Great Lakes, Passage is a poetic voyage through divorce, family violence, legacy of colonization, and the affirmation of a new sexuality and gender. Previously published as a man, Passage is the poet's first collection written as a transwoman. Striking and raw in sparse lines, the collection showcases a vital Two Spirited identity that transects borders of race, gender, and experience. In Passage, the poet seeks to reconcile herself to the land, the history of her ancestors, and her separation from her partner and family by invoking the beauty and power of her ancestral waterways. Building on the legacy of other ground-breaking Indigenous poets like Gregory Scofield and Queer poets like Tim Dlugos, Benaway's work is deeply personal and devastating in sharp, clear lines. Passage is a book burning with a beautiful intensity and reveals Benaway as one of the most powerful emerging poets writing in Indigenous poetics today.
Avg Rating
4.37
Number of Ratings
103
5 STARS
51%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
7%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
0%
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.
