Twin Tongues

2013 Robert Kroetsch Award For Innovative Poetry Winner!

Mining bilong dispela stori: Exploring the power imbalance between English and Tok Pisin, Twin Tongues transforms the English Language into a character who encounters her own foreignness in Papua New Guinea. This text struggles with the ethics of appropriation, language use and second language teaching, questioning the subjective position of the author, the teacher, the speaker of English. The poetry scrapes away the veneer of objectivity assumed by historical descriptions of Tok Pisin.

Twin Tongues tests the flexibility of language, and asks, “What does language sound like to unfamiliar ears? And what is English anyway?”

Claire Lacey is a freelance writer based in Alberta. Their creative work has appeared in filling Station, Dandelion Magazine, Poetry is Dead, and The Windsor Review. Claire holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Calgary. Claire’s alter ego, Sparkle Motion, plays roller derby.

“A deeply engrossing collection.” – Broken Pencil

“Claire Lacey’s Twin Tongues sets up an intriguing concept, executes it, and says ‘deal with it!’ Yet, for all its explorations and insatiable curiosities, it never wavers from what is important to contemporary poetry: language as a social endeavour at the crossroad of writing and reading.” – Jay MillAr