day/break

by Gwen Benaway

Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. DAY/BREAK, poet Gwen Benaway's fourth collection of work, explores the everyday poetics of the trans feminine body. Through intimate experiences and conceptualizations of trans life, DAY/BREAK asks what it means to be a trans woman, both within the text and out in the physical world. Shifting between theory and poetry, Benaway questions how gender, sexuality, and love intersect with the violence and transmisogyny of the nation state and established literary institutions. In beautiful lyric verse, DAY/BREAK reveals the often-unseen other worlds of trans life, where body, self, and sex are transformed, becoming more than fixed binary locations.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Indigenous, LGBT, Canada, Transgender

104 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 2020

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

My favourite poems in this collection:

5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 22, 41

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very powerful and moving poetry collection from a trans woman (who also happens to be of Ashinaabe and Métis descent from Canada) about her experiences-at times quite difficult images but also very powerful with hints of light and hope and love.

[Noémie Dubé · Rating 5 out of 5]

« I wear my body like the lake/ wears the shore,// rubbed at, worn away,/ eroded to a thin blue » 💕🌊

[Endon · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poetry books I've read in a long time!

[Juliane Roell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wollte das wirklich gerne mögen, aber ich fand es größtenteils eintönig & deprimierend und stilistisch nicht besonders interessant.

[amaldae · Rating 3 out of 5]

i liked this more than Holy Wild! she articulates trans girl sadness as well as anyone. her insistence that

to refuse joy
is the braver act
the only choice
girls like us

have left

gets a little tiresome - the above is far from my favorite of the poems here, but it articulated the prevailing sense straightforwardly. but i get depressiveness. when she's articulating the experience of not being at home in your body, or talking about the genocides she lives in the middle of (those of trans women and native people) she's strong, emotive, relatable to the right people.
what i find harder to take are the endless poems about letting straight loser men who don't love you, use and abuse you, like their opinion makes or breaks you. as she herself says,

loving a white man is
to be a passenger
in the wake
of his wanting

yet still:

I am what you made me
every day I tire
of performance
and apology

girl!!!

i knew this book contains her bisexual awakening, and while that was a break, it was still but a short boozy affair. this book is like confirmation that Plett's A Safe Girl to Love encapsulates the entire trans femme experience, and that's just...not what you want to see.

I wear my body like the lake
wears the shore

rubbed at, worn away,
eroded to a thin blue

we make peace with our exiles

your home in two places
my body forever
in migration

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

This time I think I gulped the poems too quickly. Benaway is writing vivid and intensely personal poems that half match my own experiences, and then suddenly and sharply diverge — it’s almost disorienting, as if I keep forgetting that they aren’t actually about me. But it’s also valuable, I think, to be seeing more of Benaway as a result, and to see the poems more as poems.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really amazing sentiments in this collection. I think Gwen has some room to grow with regards to her ability to connect with the reader. I think developing a cohesion would compliment the work in future iterations. The subject matter is really well selected and will flourish with some structural improvements. Overall a very solid project.

[Jenny Heijun Wills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous and luminescent, like all of Gwen’s writing. But also difficult in the most important ways. Another winning book of poems that is certain to inspire other writers, but also readers of beautiful literature.

[Jessie B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painful but beautiful

[Tyler Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a single sitting, and will return to it many times, I’m sure. Benaway’s use of space and text layout make this a flowing, mesmerizing book of poetry.

[Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous.

[Jennifer]

It has come to my attention that Gwen Benaway may be lying about being Indigenous so I have now cleared my rating as I'm not comfortable leaving it in case these allegations are true. Hoping she will one day address whether or not this is true but until then I will refrain from recommending her work which is unfortunate.

[Danny Mclaren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent to be read in one sitting. The poems flow into one another, like they’re one big poem rather than a collection.

[Bookworm Adventure Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a full review please see the link below:

https://bwadventuregirl.wixsite.com/w...