A review by littlebookterror
Spawn by Marie-Andrée Gill

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

3.25

 I think this is my first time reading translated poetry? Definitely the first one that draws so heavily on the author's place of birth.


This collection builds up each small, untitled poem to create a picture in your head of the Mashteuiash Reserve and Lake Piekuakami. Gill shows both the beautiful sides - the colours, the nature, her childhood memories - as well as the uglier things - poverty, alcoholism, the outsider looking in.

the rampart

suspended in time
prams, drunk boys

day and night the dogs

day and night the dandelions push
through cracks in the cement

and before us, the lake
a luck
the lake.

I loved how direct and visual her language was ("varnish half-stripped from our memories") but also sparse, only ever giving glimpses at the life she has lead there. The reader might be allowed in and look around but never too close and always on her own terms.
That said, the collection is not just pretty metaphors, it also serves as a dialogue to explore Gill's feelings as an Indigenous woman on a reservation and how conflicted she is with that identity. Tension comes both from within her community

to smooth the rifts that time
has already scraped down my hide

and from the outside.

I leave a name behind at the border
at the edge of my disorder

All in all, I enjoyed this collection even if I found it too sparse at times.

As per usual, the small snippet of the translator, Kristen Renee Miller, should not be skipped as it gives you further insights into how she approached translating a work that is at its core about ones Indigenous idenitity into another settler language.