Harmonious Chaos : World-Making and Queerness in the Poetry of Xavier Gould

Abstract

Xavier Gould is a trans, non-binary, and multidisciplinary artist from Shédiac, New Brunswick. They work mainly in performance art, such as drag and filmmaking, but also write poetry through which they explore the existence of queer identities in an Acadian cultural setting that is marked by cisheteronormative histories. Through their art, they aim at challenging the “social norms of contemporary Acadian identity to include people from the queer community” (Gould, 2020a). Gould’s trans francophone identity is a strength in their art, and they have made their mark on the Acadian art scene through their unapologetic use of chiac to express their queerness. In this essay, I argue that Gould is world-making through their active engagement with questions of identity, place, and language in their poetry. World-making has been discussed by feminist scholar Sara Ahmed (2017) as the making of a “world out of the shattered pieces even when we shatter the pieces or even when we are the shattered pieces” (p. 261). It is with this understanding of world-making that I tackle the work of Xavier Gould and explore how their “texts are worlds'' (Ahmed, p. 14), but also how they create worlds; they are interested in rewriting relationships to history and land and building solidarity across communities. Acadian voices, as a linguistic minority, have not gotten recognition at the national level. Diverse Acadian representation is important for Canada; since it would legitimize the stories and cultural contributions of people whose voices are rarely heard.