A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht

In A Little Feral, Maria Giesbrecht delivers a debut collection that navigates faith, family, and personal resurrection through a voice at once wild, intimate, and quietly rebellious. Written in the aftermath of leaving a conservative Mennonite upbringing, these poems chart a parallel journey of breaking away — from father, from God, from the confines of obedience. Giesbrecht's language is lyrical and unflinching, a cadence that moves between tenderness and defiance, weaving ancestral memory with moments of stark revelation.

A Little Feral asks readers to reimagine where holiness might be found — in the fractures of family, in the undoing of inherited faith, and even in the loneliness of a world shaped by patriarchy and exile.

"A playful collection, Maria Giesbrecht’s A Little Feral invokes her religious background. With a tongue-in-cheek tone, the book ponders the value of breaking the rules when settling on a personal identity. A borrowed Sylvia Plath line connects to the observance of sad-girl tropes on Instagram, while alliteration, slant, and internal rhymes yield enduring sonic appeal. Through sensual vocabulary and sibilance, the poems of A Little Feral capture a bittersweet, resonant religious upbringing."                  - Foreword Reviews