Grace : part one

Grace is a settler living in Ontario on the traditional and Treaty territory of the Anishinabek people, now known as the Chippewa Tri-Council comprised of the Beausoleil, Rama, and Georgina Island First Nations. Her debut collection of poetry, The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak, is published by Guernica Editions and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her work can be found in Grain Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Frontier Poetry, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere. Find her on social media at @thrillandgrace.

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

There are so, so many! Amber Dawn’s collection of glosas really opened my eyes to the magic of form beyond sonnets, and how poets can have all these conversations with each other—sometimes even crossing space and time—by getting their poems to talk to each other!

Reading Chrystos for the first time was also amazing because it completely up-ended what I was taught in high school, and even university, when we studied poems. The subject matter, her tone of voice, her humour and brilliance… It had a huge impact on me in terms of showing the power of poems to not only teach you, but also make you feel things. Uncomfortable things, happy things. It definitely expanded my own approach to writing when I was first starting out.