{"product_id":"the-idea-of-an-entire-life-isbn-9780807022405","title":"The Idea of an Entire Life","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFrom award-winning Driftpile Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, a dazzling exploration of love, anguish, queerness, and Indigenous resistance in the 21st century\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eQueer Indigenous poet Billy-Ray Belcourt offers up a powerful meditation on the present as a space where the past and a still-possible utopia collide. Rigorous in research and thought yet accessible in language and imagery, this collection weaves lyric verse, sonnets, field notes, and fragments to examine the delicate facets of queer Indigeneity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelcourt contends with the afterlife of what he calls “the long twentieth century,” a period marked by assaults on Indigenous life, and his people’s enduring resistance. The poems, sometimes heartbreaking, other times sly and humorous, are marked by the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt’s body of work. By its close, the collection makes the urgent argument that we are each our own little statues of both grief and awe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis third book of poetry and sixth across genres, Billy-Ray Belcourt’s \u003ci\u003eThe Idea of an Entire Life \u003c\/i\u003eleaves readers with a vision for queer Indigenous life as it is shaped by a violent history—and yet pulled toward a more flourishing future.Autofiction\u003cbr\u003eUtopia\u003cbr\u003e20th-Century Cree History\u003cbr\u003eEndnotes\u003cbr\u003eAn Entire Life\u003cbr\u003eThe Past Tense\u003cbr\u003eFieldnotes\u003cbr\u003eChildhood Triptych\u003cbr\u003eThe Closet\u003cbr\u003eFuture Thinking\u003cbr\u003eThe Cruising Utopia Sonnets\u003cbr\u003ePreludes\u003cbr\u003eFieldnotes\u003cbr\u003eA Prayer\u003cbr\u003eForm\u003cbr\u003eSubjugated Knowledge\u003cbr\u003eAutofiction\u003cbr\u003eFieldnotes\u003cbr\u003ePerspective\u003cbr\u003eSincerity\u003cbr\u003eRealism\u003cbr\u003eSentimentality\u003cbr\u003eThe Problem with Pleasure\u003cbr\u003eFieldnotes\u003cbr\u003e20th-Century Cree History\u003cbr\u003eEndnotes\u003cbr\u003eSubarctica\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments“Native Canadian poet, novelist, and essayist Belcourt (\u003ci\u003eA Minor Chorus\u003c\/i\u003e, 2022) dives into Indigenous identity by excavating language, land, history, and the human body in deft, direct lyrics.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beautiful. I am wowed, again. There were moments when I lost my breath. \u003ci\u003eThe Idea of an Entire Life\u003c\/i\u003e engineers a lexicon for us to decipher what it means to be wedged between a staling futurism and the em dash of colonial chronicle.”\u003cbr\u003e—Joshua Whitehead, author of \u003ci\u003eMaking Love with the Land\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“To read \u003ci\u003eThe Idea of an Entire Life\u003c\/i\u003e is to experience genre as a place between landscapes but also beyond them: horizon as ‘line break,’ infrastructure as ‘wound,’ ‘an image of a forest someone else\/was supposed to know by heart.’ Belcourt writes what’s already broken, breaking in real time, ‘in order to repair it.’”\u003cbr\u003e—Bhanu Kapil\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Idea of an Entire Life\u003c\/i\u003e reaches toward the edge of language and returns to us a map of becoming. These poems slip between forms, between ache and awe, between theory and touch. The book is an homage to and a field guide for a queer Indigenous past, present, and future. Just when I needed something to survive the world now, Belcourt offers us a vision where life might be something tender, magic, and deeply radiant.”\u003cbr\u003e—Jake Skeets, author of \u003ci\u003eEyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eBilly-Ray Belcourt \u003c\/b\u003eis a writer from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is the author of 6 books, including the Griffin Poetry Prize–winning debut \u003ci\u003eThis Wound Is a World\u003c\/i\u003e. Belcourt serves the Canada Research Chair in Queer Indigenous Cultural Production at the University of British Columbia, edits poetry for \u003ci\u003eHazlitt\u003c\/i\u003e, and is the founder of \u003ci\u003eoteh nîkân\u003c\/i\u003e, an online magazine of LGBTQ2S+ Indigenous writing.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233686204645,"sku":"NP9780807022405","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807022405.jpg?v=1767739893","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-idea-of-an-entire-life-isbn-9780807022405","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}