Description

Windham-Campbell Prize, Winner
OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Winner
OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature Poetry, Winner
Griffin Poetry Prize, Winner
Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, Winner
Rebel Women Lit Caribbean Readers' Awards, Finalist
Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry, Finalist
Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Finalist
Raymond Souster Award, Longlist
Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Longlist
Quill & Quire 2020 Books of the Year: Editor's Picks
CBC Best Canadian Poetry of 2020
Winnipeg Free Press Top 10 Poetry Picks of 2020
The Paris Review, Contributor's Edition, Best Books of 2020

The Dyzgraphxst presents seven inquiries into selfhood through the perennial figure Jejune. Polyvocal in register, the book moves to mine meanings of kinship through the wide and intimate reach of language across geographies and generations. Against the contemporary backdrop of intensified capitalist fascism, toxic nationalism, and climate disaster, the figure Jejune asks, how have I come to make home out of unrecognizability. Marked by and through diasporic life, Jejune declares, I was not myself. I am not myself. My self resembles something having nothing to do with me.