Marie-Andrée Gill (born 1986) is a Canadian poet from the community of
Mashteuiatsh
Mashteuiatsh is a First Nations reserve in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, about north from the centre of Roberval. It is the home to the Pekuakamiulnuatsh First Nation. It is located on a headland jutting out on the w ...
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, Canada.
Education
Gill is a master's student at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi. In her work, she explores literary creation and its relationship to oral language and its territoriality.
Publications
Marie-Andrée Gill is the author of multiple poetry collections published by Éditions de La Peuplade. Her poetry combines her Illnue and Québécoise sensibilities and balances ideas of "kitsch and existential."
About ''Frayer'', jury reviewer and poet Louise Dupré wrote: "Marie-Andrée Gill makes a voice of great singularity heard, which questions her genealogy and faces obstacles by seeking Attentive to the contradictions of desire, this book bears witness to an intense presence, in tension between the personal and the collective, realism and dreams, prosaism and poetic invention, fragility and revolt, gentleness and insolence, the past and the future, hope and non-hope. Frayer asks very fair questions about the world we have inherited."
In a review of ''Spawn'', Steven W. Beattie focused on Gill's interest in describing her subjects with the scantest of words. Her directness is understood when she writes about the claustrophobia of life on a reservation—“get me out of these fifteen square kilometres" and the conditions that the colonial system imposed upon her—“I am a village that didn’t have a choice.” The poems follow the life cycle of an ouananiche—a type of
salmon
Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...
—where Gill juxtaposes nature poetry with pop-culture references.
Her work appears in anthologies and magazines such as Estuaire, Le Sabord, Poème Sale, Sirale,
Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an American digital magazine known for publishing fiction, poetry, essays, reportage, art, and interviews that focus primarily on global perspectives and the intersection between art and politics. ...
, and Tupelo Quarterly in both English and French.
Published collections
* ''Béante'' (2012)
* ''Frayer'' (2015), English translation ''Spawn'' (2020) (translated by Kristen Renee Miller)
* ''Chauffer le dehors'' (2019), English translation ''Heating the Outdoors'' (2023) (translated by Kristen Renee Miller)
Selected honours
* 2012, finalist, Prix du Gouverneur-Général for ''Béante.''
* 2013, Poetry Literary Prize, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Book Fair for ''Béante.''
* 2015, finalist,
Prix Émile-Nelligan The Prix Émile-Nelligan is a literary award given annually by the Fondation Émile-Nelligan to a North American French language poet under the age of 35. It was named in honour of the Quebec poet Émile Nelligan and was first awarded in 1979, the ...
for ''Frayer.''
* 2013, Poetry Literary Prize, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Book Fair for ''Frayer.''
* 2018, Indigenous Voices Award
* 2020, Best Published Poetry in French,