My poetry chapbook We, Old Young Ones was just published by Frog Hollow Press through their Dis/Ability series. I am incredibly proud of this little book, and so grateful to my editor Shane Neilson and the publisher Caryl Wyse Peters for making such an exquisite book.
The book contains 21 poems, some reprints and some original to the chapbook. The poems explore disability, the linguistics of pain, bodily autonomy, family, and intergenerational dynamics.
The folks at Frog Hollow Press have created a PDF announcement for the book, which contains the table of contents and the opening poem “Let us for a moment call this pain by other words” as a sampler. The poem is original the chapbook and is one of my favourites. It had been accepted by one of my favourite American journals, but unfortunately the timing didn’t work with the chapbook release so they couldn’t take it. So I’m particularly happy to have it online this way to share with more readers. Another poem original to the chapbook, “After convulsing in public” was just featured on Poetry Pause, the poem a day project by the League of Canadian Poets.
I am absurdly lucky to have the amazing Immy Smith’s work gracing both the front and back of the chapbook! Both pieces are from their remarkable project The Little Things Add Up. In it they use Morse Code as a drawing method to illustrate and explore the ways “everyday small comments, made to disabled people by non-disabled people, can add up to a large and (de)pressing weight.” It is a brilliant project. The pieces gracing the chapbook translate to “it can’t hurt that much” (left/back) and “you look too young” (right/front).
Dominik Parisien 