sick - Paperback

by Jody Chan (Author)

"Jody Chan writes, 'have you ever found your specific wounds curled up in a song / written by someone else?' SICK is medicine and music. This book unearths a tenderness unknown to me before reading these poems and witnessing their 'humble magic.' Chan's lyric is a landscape I return to find myself. How lucky are we to be living and reading while Jody Chan is writing and teaching us how to be 'warm & unafraid'-what a tremendous, marvelous gift."

-Yujane Chen

"This striking debut-poems of history, of beauty, of violence, of grief-will surprise you at every turn of phrase and page. Chan's work is innovative, their treatment of the universal human condition meticulously unique. Do not miss this collection."

-Erica Dawson

"In SICK, Jody Chan examines loss through brilliant and stunning lyric, each poem urgent with gentle ferocity. So much exists here in the absence of what is said, so much feels vestigial-a phantom limb that keeps aching through deftly crafted nuance, simply mesmerizing. The many exigencies of grief appear and reappear in this collection like a 'hungry ghost, ' but Chan proclaims/reclaims, 'this is a love story this is a love story this is a love story.'"

-Jay Ward

Author Biography

Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, community organizer, and care worker based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of sick (Black Lawrence Press), finalist for the Lambda Literary and Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. Jody is a performing and teaching member with RAW Taiko Drummers, an editorial board member of Midnight Sun Magazine, the 2023-2024 Artist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto's Queer and Trans Research Lab, and the 2023 recipient of the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Literature from the Canada Council for the Arts.