Abstract

This poetry collection follows a speaker who stands in between binaries of language and gender identity. Weaving together English and French, these poems seek to ask what it means to contain a plurality of identities. The overarching narrative of this collection is of a speaker struggling with their gender identity, as well as the death of their Quebecois father. The collection works with several forms, primarily free verse with the use of slashes (/). I have chosen to use slashes in my work as both a visual way to represent binaries (either/or), and to encourage the reader to read the poems as music. Other forms included in the collection include sonnets, glosas, and list forms. “Franglais” is an exploration of trans identity, bilingualism, family, and what we inherit from our families.