JLRB Preſs

Back to Books

Becoming: An Anthology of What-If Poems about Women and Woman­hood

JLRB Press Shop

Eds. Cowger, Gower, and Polis

2026

On ne naît pas femme : on le devient.
One is not born a woman: one becomes it.

—Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex

From the Back Cover

Womanhood, as we’ve been tra­di­tion­al­ly taught from Van­cou­ver to Vla­di­vos­tók, is de­ter­mined by bodily func­tions and a­na­to­mi­cal sex. And so, nor­ma­tive nar­ra­tives find wo­men bound to child­bear­ing and house­keep­ing—to spa­ces de­sig­na­ted for dis­tinct­ly “fe­minine” work, play, self-ex­pres­sion, and power. De­spite count­less chal­len­ges from ge­ne­ra­tions of authors, and after nearly two cen­tu­ries of fe­mi­nist movements, popular tropes not only con­ti­nue to re­in­force the in­sur­mount­able divide—between the brazen men who fight in wars and wear pants and the demure wo­men who keep house and wear dresses—but also influence nar­ra­tives from queer, trans­gender, and mar­gi­na­lized voi­ces. In an age when opposition to traditional, nor­ma­tive wo­man­hood is still often seen as re­vo­lu­tion­a­ry and dan­ge­rous, any attempt to redefine one’s identity that chal­len­ges the sta­tus quo can become not only a means of trac­ing the change in our un­der­stand­ing of gender ex­pres­sion and iden­tity but also a matter of necessity and sur­vi­val.

In this book, we invite a diverse group of authors from across Ca­na­da and the U.S. to con­sider the past and pre­sent con­fines of wo­man­hood and then to imagine oth­er worlds that might reflect our own. And so, as you, the reader, visit these worlds, we also invite you to consider womanhood as a mode of unceasing evolution and change.

Excerpt

Doilies May Deceive You

by Marilyn Letts

Doilies don’t grow in china cabinets.
They shouldn’t lie still, collecting dust.
They aren’t paper circles ’round Christmas cakes
passed outas wedding favoursby busy hands.
Doilies shouldn’t be placed upon headrests in cars,
or cover the head in church,
lacy triangles warning the Holy Spirit not to touch down
inspiring the men to speak as he wafts about.
They hold spacesitting betweenthe wood and glass
to stop dampness from leaving a mark.
Doilies aren’t as useful as quilts, mittens, or blankets.
Or as useless as needlepoint, painting,
or poems.

© Marilyn Letts. All rights reserved.

Reviews

Becoming holds a chorus of shapeshifters—poems that slip between selves. With the ease of breath and revelations born of bravery, voices move over rooftops, woodpiles, markets, doctors’ offices, and mythic gardens, leaving the mark of womanhood on every surface. Here, gender is a star field, an exploration of what it means and what it takes. It shows itself in names, cracks open like po­me­gra­nates, and haunts bodies that bloom, moult, and mis­re­mem­ber themselves. Each poem holds up a mirror that glints with visions of what a woman is, was, might have been, or refuses to be. Becoming is a metamorphosis—in these luminous pages, there is a radiance that cannot be contained.

—Nina Mosall
Author of Bebakhshid

The poems in each of this book’s five sections offer va­ri­ous­ly layered explorations of contested borders and pro­to­cols against which their speak­ers measure themselves. In voices—painful and playful, lyrical and experimental, am­bi­va­lent and defiant—they negotiate the gendered world, re­de­fin­ing themselves as they go along. Mothers and daugh­ters obsess over one another, wonder about names and matrilineage. And we are invited to ima­gine a world with­out gen­der or pronouns, to become en­grossed in a sensual ro­mance, to ob­sess over stylish stilettos or cheap, shop­lift­ed lip­stick, and to witness the bittersweet re­union of two aging friends who sip hibiscus tea and ab­sinthe on a rainy porch, still becoming.

—Wendy Donawa
Author of The Time of Falling Apart

About the Contributors

• 
  Katie Cowger (she/her) is a writer and poet liv­ing on the unceded, an­cest­ral, and traditional ter­ri­to­ries of the xʷməθ­kʷəy̓əmm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7­mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Na­tions (Van­cou­ver, British Columbia). Her published writ­ing in­cludes the debut poetry collection High School Was for Boys and the zine-format first-draft poem collection Sarah, Please Come Back. Ka­tie’s writing life began at the age of six, when an existential crisis caused by a di­sast­rous haircut led to her putting down, Dear Diary, My hair is stoopid. Currently, she is working on her second po­et­ry collection Bed Bugs, and on JUNE, her debut sapphic fiction novel about limerence, the chal­lenges of close re­la­tion­ships, ob­ses­sion, and lovestruck mad­ness. Ka­tie is the founder of The Pen Pal Club and The Van­cou­ver Poetry Swap, two snail-mail writing clubs.
• Glitch Dewis (he/they/any) is a poet, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist, and historian currently pursuing their Master of Ar­chival Studies degree. He was born and raised on the traditional, an­cest­ral, and unceded territory of the Lə­k̓ʷəŋən people (Victoria, British Columbia). Glitch is of Irish and Scottish ancestry and was raised with tra­di­tion­al Celtic traditions that have greatly influenced their work and how he interacts with the natural world around them. Glitch is a student of trans­gen­der and queer history with a focus on phy­si­cal, non-book media. In their free time, when he isn’t writing or studying, you can find them out at a punk show wreaking havoc in the mosh pit.
• 
  Julie G. Fox (she/her) writes across borders, making her home in the U.S., U.K., and France. She has published more than fifty children’s books and spends just as much time chasing cats and ideas as she does working out the outline of a novel that she swears she’s going to finish. When Julie isn’t writing, she works as a media psychologist and a lawyer-in-training. She is always curious about the ways in which stories shape us.
• 
  Terri Gower (she/her) is an English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher, poet, and editor living on the traditional, an­cest­ral, and unceded territory of the Lə­k̓ʷəŋən people (Victoria, British Co­lum­bi­a). She is the founder of the Books for Breath annual fundraiser for the Pulmonary Hy­per­ten­sion As­so­ci­a­tion of Canada. Terri works to raise awareness of Idiopathic Pulmonary Ar­te­ri­al Hypertension and often explores her struggles with the rare lung disease in her writing. Her work has appeared in BANGS Zine, Gas­tro­po­da Literary Magazine, Tissues PH, and in the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause.
• 
  Kath Healing (they/them) is a queer, trans, nonbinary, disabled, and neu­ro­di­ver­gent poet from the U.K. currently based on the traditional, an­cest­ral, and unceded ter­ritory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən people (Victoria, Bri­tish Columbia). Their work often balances sharp­ness with tenderness and employs mul­tiplicity and bureaucratic tropes (often taking the shape of notes, archives, and frac­tured records) to examine the ways in which gen­der, survival, and memory are documented or erased and to explore queer survival through collective voice. Kath’s poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2 (CV2), Ple­ni­tude Ma­ga­zine, and PRISM In­ter­na­tion­al. They perform re­gularly at slam poetry and open mic events. In 2025, they won the Victoria Writers’ So­ciety Poetry Contest for the poem “a quiet animal survives you.”
• 
  Marilyn Letts (she/her) is a poet and ex­pe­ri­men­tal writer who is grateful to live on the tra­di­tion­al territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta and the Métis Nation of Alberta, Dis­tricts 5 and 6 (Calgary). Her poems have appeared in The Feathertale Review, Freefall Magazine, Other Voices, The Queen’s Quarterly and in her chap­book Waiting for Lightning.
• 
  Lucía M. Polis (she/her) is a neu­ro­queer Canadian po­et, translator, and editor from Moscow, U.S.S.R. She has been writing and translating poetry since 1996. Her work has appeared in Up­rooted, The Liar, and in her collections Gran­ville, We Were Hateful People, and The Love of a Good Man. Lucía’s studies centered on the trans­lation and censorship of Ame­ri­can satire during the Era of Stagnation in the U.S.S.R. By day, she writes tech­ni­cal do­cu­men­ta­tion; by night, she writes and edits poetry. Lucía lives on Vancouver Is­land where her time is almost completely consumed by coding, editing, and writing. In time free from work, she haunts local coffee shops in daz­zling dresses, tends to plants, loves friends, sets boundaries, keeps house, takes pho­to­walks, memorizes verse, and goes on long drives to nowhere in particular.
• 
  Nancy Takacs (she/her) divides her time between the high-desert town of Wel­ling­ton, Utah and a small cabin in Bayfield, Wisconsin, where she spends time with her husband Jan, their puppies Micah and Zoey, and their turtle Seattle. For many years, she had taught creative writing at the Col­lege of Eastern Utah and currently she teaches poetry writing at her local senior centre. Nan­cy loves eco-print­ing on cloth, gardening, hik­ing, and swimming. Her latest poetry col­lec­tion is Dearest Water (from Mayapple Press).

Softcover

JLRB Press Bookshop

🌎

Amazon

🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 🇪🇸 🇮🇹 🇳🇱 🇵🇱 🇸🇪 🇯🇵 🇦🇺

Barnes & Noble

🇺🇸

Ebook

Nook Barnes & Noble

🇺🇸

Kindle Amazon

🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇲🇽 🇧🇷 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇮🇹 🇳🇱 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇦🇺

Ebook Google Play

🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇲🇽 🇧🇷 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇩🇪 🇦🇹 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 🇨🇭 🇱🇺 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 🇮🇹 🇳🇱 🇩🇰 🇫🇮 🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇵🇱 🇺🇦 🇮🇳 🇭🇰 🇹🇼 🇸🇬 🇰🇷 🇯🇵 🇦🇺 🇳🇿