Full-Metal Indigiqueer
Using binary code and texts from classics of the English language such as Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Joshua Whitehead unravels the coded “I” to trace the formation of a colonized self and reclaim representations of Indigenous texts.
“Both the form and content of the poems throughout Full-Metal Indigiqueer slice through barriers imposed by the conventions of language, to assert a new kind of identity for Whitehead, as the poet struggles and fights against the social, literary, and individual colonizations that he lives with/in. … Whitehead displays a clear love for the possibilities of written language, despite his misgivings about how it has come to be a part of his life through the colonial process. The creative use of text and language throughout this collection suggests that creative use of language can become a bold way through the traps set up to confine speakers to sanctioned ways of expressing themselves.” ―Wes Babcock, Bywords
