it was never going to be okay

By Jaye Simpson

it was never going to be okay is a collection of poetry and prose exploring the intimacies of understanding intergenerational trauma, Indigeneity and queerness, while addressing urban Indigenous diaspora and breaking down the limitations of sexual understanding as a trans woman. As a way to move from the linear timeline of healing and coming to terms with how trauma does not exist in subsequent happenings, it was never going to be okay tries to break down years of silence in simpson’s debut collection of poetry:

i am five

my sisters are saying boy

i do not know what the word means but—

i am bruised into knowing it: the blunt b,

the hollowness of the o, the blade of y 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nightwood Editions
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9780889713833

Jaye Simpson

jaye simpson is a Two-Spirit Oji-Cree person of the Buffalo Clan with roots in Sapotaweyak and Skownan Cree Nation who often writes about being queer in the child welfare system, as well as being queer and Indigenous. simpson’s work has been performed at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (2017) in Peterborough, and in Guelph with the Vancouver Slam Poetry 2018 Team. simpson has recently been named the Vancouver Champion for the Women of the World Poetry Slam and their work has been featured in Poetry Is Dead, This Magazine, PRISM international, SAD Mag, GUTS Magazine and Room. simpson resides on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), səlilwəta’Ɂɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations peoples, currently and colonially known as Vancouver, BC.

Book preview

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it was never going to be okay

it was never going to be okay

jaye simpson

Nightwood Editions logo 2020

Copyright © jaye simpson, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [e-mail].

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Cover design: Angela Yen

Typesetting: Carleton Wilson

Government of Canada wordmark Canada Council for the Arts logo Supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

Nightwood Editions acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.

Printed and bound in Canada.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: It was never going to be okay / by jaye simpson.

Names: simpson, jaye, author.

Description: Poems.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200213679 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200213687 | ISBN 9780889713826 (softcover) | ISBN 9780889713833 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS8637.I4863 I89 2020 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

For all the queer NDN foster kids out there.

Contents

One

sea glass 11

teeth & sharp bones (a dialogue) 14

boy 17

haunting (a poem in six parts) 20

00088614 26

her. (i.) 28

her. (ii.) 29

metal // biting down // i 30

Two

nogojiwanong // peterborough 33

the end of a friendship 36

inheritance 38

// 40

this woman//nookum 41

urban NDNs in the DTES 44

it is too late: 46

flinch 48

loving in the dark 49

head & heart & hands & health (a poem in four parts) 52

Three

fever 57

norman fucking rockwell! is lana del rey’s greatest album 58

bedroom hymns 60

in a city without seasons… 63

beast 66

decolonial pu$y 68

godzilla 70

r e d 72

beautiful monsters in uncanny valley 74

perennial love poem 76

ζήλια // jealousy 78

monstrous bodies 80

Four

the seven sacred ways of healing 83

o r a l i t y 86

healing//sacrifice//necessity 88

w a t e r w a y s 90

q u e e r / / r i t i o n 95

raven 98

about the ones i want to love 101

notes 106

acknowledgements 107

about the author 111

let me be clear: any love I find will be treason

– Hieu Minh Nguyen

I’ll sing to you until you sing back

– Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

One

sea glass

call me sea glass:

found after a dreamy hot day,

beachside stomach full of fruit,

skin kissed by the sun.

call me sea glass:

smooth around the edges

just the right amount of

opaque, clear & cloudy.

call me sea glass:

auntie loved it,

had me framed in mosaic

above her fireplace,

wind chimes

of me singing

through coastal wind.

call me sea glass:

because i once was sharp

broken tossed in

tumultuous tides

thrashed on barnacle- & coral-clad rock,

pitched on log after drunken sunset

witnessed by shifting bonfire light.

they hardly ever remember

i used to cut.

they forget

that in order to love me:

i had to break,

smashed apart.

i held poison,

dripped venom on flesh,

kissed on the lips

straight