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Full-Metal Indigiqueer: the Pro(1,0)zoa

Pages
128
Published
2017
Language
English

Synopsis

This poetry collections focuses on a hybridized Indigiqueer Trickster character named Zoa who brings together the organic (the protozoan) and the technologic (the binaric) in order to re-beautify and re-member queer Indigeneity. This Trickster is a Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer invention that resurges in the apocalypse to haunt, atrophy, and to reclaim. Following oral tradition (� la Iktomi, Nanaboozho, Wovoka), Zoa infects, invades, and becomes a virus to canonical and popular worksin order to re-centre Two-Spirit livelihoods. They dazzlingly and fiercely take on the likes of Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and John Milton while also not forgetting contemporary pop culture figures such as Lana Del Rey, Grindr, and Peter Pan. Zoa world-builds a fourth-dimension, lives in the cyber space, and survives in NDN-time - they have learned to sing the skin back onto their bodies and remain #woke at the end of the world. "Do not read me as a vanished ndn," they ask, "read me as a ghastly one." Full-Metal Indigiqueer is influenced by the works of Jordan Abel, Tanya Tagaq, Daniel Heath Justice, Claudia Rankine, Vivek Shraya, Qwo-Li Driskill, Leanne Simpson, Kent Monkman, and Donna Haraway. It is a project of resurgence for Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer folk who have been ghosted in policy, page, tradition, and hi/story - the very lives of Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer youth are rarely mentioned (and even dispossessed in our very mandates for reconciliation), our lives are precarious but they too are precious. We find ourselves made spectral in settler and neocolonial Indigenous nationalisms - if reconciliation is a means of "burying the hatchet," Zoa seeks to unearth the bones buried with those hatched scalps and perform a s�ance to ghost dance Indigiqueerness into existence. Zoa world-destroys in order to world-build a new space - they care little for reconciliation but rather aim to reterroritorialize space in literature, pop culture, and oral storytelling. This project follows in the tradition of the aforementioned authors who, Whitehead believes, utilize deconstruction as a means of decolonization. This is a sex-positive project that tirelessly works to create coalition between those who have, as Haraway once noted, "been injured, profoundly." Zoa stands in solidarity with all qpoc folk who exist as ghosts with intergenerational and colonial phantom pains - they sing with Donna Summer, RuPaul, Effie White, and Trixie Mattel. The space made is a post-apocalyptic hub of sex and decolonization - a world where making love is akin to making live.

About the author

J
Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation. He is the author of the novel Jonny Appleseed, the poetry collection Full-Metal Indigiqueer: the Pro(1,0)zoa, and the non-fiction work Making Love with the Land.

Characters

ZoaProtagonist

A hybridized Indigiqueer Trickster character who combines organic and technologic elements to re-beautify and re-member queer Indigeneity. Zoa is a Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer invention that resurges in the apocalypse.

Charles DickensCameo
John MiltonCameo
Lana Del ReyCameo
Peter PanCameo
All characters in Full-Metal Indigiqueer: the Pro(1,0)zoa

Frequently asked questions

  • Does Full-Metal Indigiqueer connect to Joshua Whitehead's other works?

    This collection introduces themes and a unique voice that resonate with and are further explored in Whitehead's later novel, Jonny Appleseed, particularly in its exploration of queer Indigenous identity and experiences.

  • What makes the structure of Full-Metal Indigiqueer unique?

    The collection is notable for its innovative use of form, blending traditional poetic structures with digital and technological language, creating a distinct hybrid style that reflects its themes of merging the organic and the technologic.