Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica

2026-03-02 · 18 min · episode 25 · 14 entities

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mentioned Society & Culture concept

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mentioned Arts concept

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mentioned Religion & Spirituality concept

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Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica
discusses Society & Culture concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Society & Culture
discusses Arts concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Arts
discusses Religion & Spirituality concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Religion & Spirituality
discusses Relationships concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Relationships
discusses Books concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Books
discusses Spirituality concept

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evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Spirituality

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hosted by On Being Studios company

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Feed author/publisher: On Being Studios

Episode description as stored

Will you leave this episode feeling uplifted, envious, curious, or something else entirely? Yes. Billy-Ray Belcourt’s poem “Subarctica” transports you to a vividly specific time — “the coldest December / on record, I haven’t left my mother’s / house in over a week” — where the primary view is of poplars in “a tiny schoolyard”. Amid the simplicity and snow, the speaker shifts their perspective, seeing beyond their past and towards the wonder in their present and in what is to come. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack , read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns , or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes . Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is the author of six books, including the Griffin Poetry Prize-winning debut This Wound Is a World . Belcourt serves as the Canada Research Chair in Queer Indigenous Cultural Production at the University of British Columbia and also edits poetry for Hazlitt . Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.