The All + Flesh

Winner, 2024 Indigenous Voices Award for Poetry in EnglishFinalist, 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for PoetryFinalist, 2024 League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Memorial AwardFinalist, 2024 League of Canadian Poets' Raymond Souster AwardLonglist, 2024 League of Canadian Poets' Pat Lowther Memorial AwardCBC Best Poetry of 2024I am made of centuries & carbohydratesthe development of my molarsthe hunger the teeth grewhas been with me since childhoodI can’t escape the mouths of others?Brandi Bird’s long-anticipated debut poetry collection, The All + Flesh, explores the concepts of health, language, place, and memory that connect its author to their chosen kin, blood relatives, and ancestral lands. By examining kinship in broader contexts, these frank, transcendent poems expose binaries that exist inside those relationships, then inspect and tease them apart in the hope of moving toward decolonial future(s). Bird’s work is highly concerned with how outer and inner landscapes move and change within the confines of the English language, particularly the “I” of the self, a tradition of movement that has been lost for many who don’t speak their Indigenous languages or live on their homelands. By exploring the landscapes the poet does inhabit, both internally and externally, Bird’s poems seek to delve into and reflect their cultural lineages—specifically Saulteaux, Cree, and Métis—and how these transformative identities shape the person they are today.