Two-spirit, non-binary sadboy
May 26th, 2022
Having performed at Talking Stick Festival, Verses Festival of Spoken Word, Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and over 50 different venues from Victoria to Toronto; having published in more than a dozen literary journals such as Red Rising Magazine, Prairie Fire, CV2, Arc Poetry Magazine and most recently, the anthology, Beyond Earth’s Edge: the poetry of spaceflight!; and having self-published three chapbooks – Tawahum Bige has finally released their debut collection of poetry, Cut to Fortress (Nightwood $19.95). These poems course with anguish and rage as Bige confronts colonialism and family relationships disrupted by trauma. When a writing professor says the use of ‘colonization’ in a poem is too abstract, Bige replies: “Colonization is a two-man saw: / a signed-in-blood, written-in-English / contract atop a forest cut to stumps … Colonization is our burned anthologies, / silenced oral histories over millennia / replaced with intergenerational trauma … he was in foster care from fifteen – / a groan / and from three stories up / Life-Tree creaks and…thud. / Colonization is a signed-in-blood, written-in-English / coroner’s report, denoting / Accidental fall/undetermined … It’s this lived experience / constantly called into question // and a writing professor / who calls colonization / too abstract.” Bige is Lutselk’e Dene and Plains Cree, holds a BA in creative writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and self-describes as a “two-spirit, non-binary sadboy on occupied Turtle Island.” 978-0-088971-416-8
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