Skip to content
poets.ca circle logo black transparent

League of Canadian Poets

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
×
  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP

Identity Crisis at Dixie Lee: Shippagan, NB by Jenna Lyn Albert

By League of Canadian Poets | August 30, 2022

Poet name: Jenna Lyn Albert Poem name: Identity Crisis at Dixie Lee: Shippagan, NB Poem: Twelve years of French immersion didn’t prepare me for this moment, ma belle gueule, wanting for the words to order at a Dixie Lee in Northern NB: presque vu. I batter my brain, deep-fry parietal, temporal lobes in a freshet of grease. I remove them prematurely, gone all Shubenacadie Sam and nothing’s near done; not winter, not the langue of a drive home, not the knot of hunger for Acadie, Gabriel to my Evangeline: lost and found long enough to go bad at the back of the fridge behind the Baxter’s and Becel. My fast-food French sits heavy in the belly, stains the clamshell take-away box with imprints like wet asses on patio chairs. It’s not an easy clean up, I’ve cracked into the lobster sans les flyers, fingers fishy, hands éperlan flopping useless as my tongue over basic, back-home vocabulary—comment ça flip? End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Jenna Lyn Albert Previously published in Riddle Fence #27 Jenna Lyn Albert (she/they | elle/iel) is a queer poet and community organizer living on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik people. Their debut collection of poetry Bec & Call (Nightwood Editions 2018) won the New Brunswick Book Awards’ Fiddlehead Poetry Prize. Jenna served a two-year term as the City of Fredericton’s Poet Laureate from 2019-2020 and is currently working on their sophomore collection of poetry, mal à l’aise.

Posted in Poetry Pause
Support poets and poetry in Canada. Donate today.

Established in 1966, the League of Canadian Poets is a National Arts Service Organization dedicated to supporting poets, building poetic communities, supporting inclusive and equitable free expression, and promoting Canadian poets and poetry. 

Site Links

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
Member Hub

Get In Touch!

  • League of Canadian Poets
    C/O Centre for Social Innovation
    720 Bathurst St
    Toronto ON
    M5S 2R4
     

  • (416) 504-1657

  • [email protected]

  • The League of Canadian Poets operates remotely; in-person office hours are by appointment only. 

"Poetry means having the courage to forage the depthsof what makes & unmakes us."

–Adebe DeRango-Adem, Author of Vox Humana, 2023 Raymond Souster Award Winner

Donate Today
Poetry needs superheroes. A donation to the League of Canadian Poets supports poets and poetry from coast to coast.

The office of the League of Canadian Poets is situated in the land of Tkaronto which is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Footer-logos-resized-new

© 2023 League of Canadian Poets

GoDaddy Web Design
Scroll To Top