Reviews
Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, the poems in Michelle Poirier Brown's You Might Be Sorry You Read This reveal how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful.—49th Shelf, February 28, 2022
Bestseller List Week Ending 2022-09-18
9#
"This is a book that refuses secrets, that seeks to transform dark and unsettling experiences by confronting them with clarity and fury." Melanie Brannagan Frederiksen, Winnipeg Free Press, July 23, 2022
Endorsements
"Michelle Poirier Brown's first collection of poetry is accomplished and gripping. In her five-decade story, perceptions, denial, emotional embroilments and poignant tenderness are peeled back and examined. As the narrative builds, we encounter the sheer alchemical power of poetry. This is rare. You Might Be Sorry You Read This will change you." Betsy Warland, Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss
"One of the functions of poetry is to make you uncomfortable." This epigraph, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, begins Michelle Poirier Brown's debut collection—a collection that intends, unapologetically, to discomfort the reader. With unflinching precision and the exactness of a fine poet's eye, Poirier Brown challenges her readers to encounter not only her childhood trauma but, ultimately, the power of her self—her late-discovered Métis identity, her navigation of PTSD, her unwillingness to settle for less than the truth. In the final poem, "Self-Portrait of the Poet," she concludes, "go ahead. look. / Look as long as you like." Invitation or command, it's a hard look Poirier Brown offers. It may make readers uncomfortable. But they won't be sorry."
—Laura Apol, author of A Fine Yellow Dust
"In her compelling debut collection, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, Michelle Poirier Brown pulls you into an intimate place of unflinching honesty. Brown's poetic memoir confronts, explores, and digests hard truths. There is no sitting quietly on the sidelines for the reader. Her book claims your engagement. And as the speaker awakens to herself, the poems ring out with new confidence and resonance. I predict emphatically you will be grateful you read this." Susan Alexander, Nothing You Can Carry
