You Might Be Sorry You Read This is a stunning debut, revealing how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful. A poetic memoir that looks unflinchingly at childhood trauma (both incestuous rape and surviving exposure in extreme cold), it also tells the story of coming to terms with a hidden Indigenous identity when the poet discovered her Métis heritage at age 38. This collection is a journey of pain, belonging, hope, and resilience. The confessional poems are polished yet unpretentious, often edgy but humorous; they explore trauma yet prioritize the poet’s story. Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, these narratives carry weight. They tell us “You need / only be the simple / expression of the divine / intent / that is your life.” There is a lifetime in these poems.

Michelle Poirier Brown is an internationally published poet and performer, currently living in Lekwungen territory (Victoria, BC). She is nêhiyaw-iskwêw and a citizen of the Métis Nation. Her poem “Wake” won PRISM international’s Earle Birney Prize in 2019. The song cycle, "The Length of a Day” (Jeffrey Ryan, composer), premiered in 2021. Her work has appeared in Arc, CV2, The Greensboro Review, Grain, Emrys Journal, Vallum, and several anthologies. A feminist activist, Michelle won a landmark human rights case establishing reasonable accommodation in the workplace for breastfeeding women. Retired from careers as a speech writer, conflict analyst, and federal treaty negotiator, she now writes full-time, enjoys the produce of her permaculture garden, and has taken up birdwatching. 

Michelle Poirier Brown's profile page

• Short-listed, Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry | Alberta Book Publishing Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta
• Winner, AUPresses Book, Jacket, & Journal Show - Jackets and Covers
• Commended, Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Book Awards / Indigenous Voices

#10 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, June 5, 2023

"An excellent job of carrying the reader along... [The author's voice] has an off-hand tone to it. It is practical, pragmatic, states its case. There is strength and indignance in it." Jury comments, SCWES Book Awards for BC Authors

#9 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, September 18, 2022

"Michelle Poirier Brown’s first collection of poetry is accomplished and gripping. In her five-decade story, perceptions, denial, emotional embroilments and poignant tenderness are peeled back and examined. As the narrative builds, we encounter the sheer alchemical power of poetry. This is rare. You Might Be Sorry You Read This will change you." Betsy Warland, Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss

Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, the poems in Michelle Poirier Brown’s You Might Be Sorry You Read This reveal how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful.

49th Shelf, February 28, 2022

"In her compelling debut collection, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, Michelle Poirier Brown pulls you into an intimate place of unflinching honesty. Brown’s poetic memoir confronts, explores, and digests hard truths. There is no sitting quietly on the sidelines for the reader. Her book claims your engagement. And as the speaker awakens to herself, the poems ring out with new confidence and resonance. I predict emphatically you will be grateful you read this." Susan Alexander, Nothing You Can Carry

“One of the functions of poetry is to make you uncomfortable.” This epigraph, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, begins Michelle Poirier Brown’s debut collection—a collection that intends, unapologetically, to discomfort the reader. With unflinching precision and the exactness of a fine poet’s eye, Poirier Brown challenges her readers to encounter not only her childhood trauma but, ultimately, the power of her self—her late-discovered Métis identity, her navigation of PTSD, her unwillingness to settle for less than the truth. In the final poem, “Self-Portrait of the Poet,” she concludes, “go ahead. look. / Look as long as you like.” Invitation or command, it’s a hard look Poirier Brown offers. It may make readers uncomfortable. But they won’t be sorry.” —Laura Apol, author of A Fine Yellow Dust

"This is a book that refuses secrets, that seeks to transform dark and unsettling experiences by confronting them with clarity and fury." Melanie Brannagan Frederiksen, Winnipeg Free Press, July 23, 2022