On Tuesday, September 20 at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books, and poets Jody Chan + Zoe Dickinson for the launch of their poetry books: “sick” (2020, Black Lawrence Press), and “Intertidal: poems from the littoral zone” (2022, Raven Chapbooks).

At the in-person event, authors will read passages from the books, and address their research in poetic literature. After the readings, Chan and Dickinson will also answer questions from the audience and engage on intimate conversations with readers.

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.

This event is free + open to all of our community, and registration is mandatory. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender neutral washroom is on-site.

Covid Protocols: For all in-person events, attendees must provide proof of vaccination, and use of mask at all times when at the gallery. We ask that if you are showing any symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.

Please be sure to register for this event.

Purchase “sick” by Jody Chan at Massy Books.

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Books and Authors

sick

sick interweaves personal and collective narratives of family, trauma, queerness, and madness. The poems in this collection explore the estrangements between homeland and diaspora, between sickness and wellness, and between self and community.

A series of poems about the concept of “favourite person”, a term familiar to those in the borderline personality disorder community. An exploration of a father’s relationship with Teresa Teng. A series of love letters: to a first queer crush, to depression, to five-dollar grocery store pies.

With a voice born of haunting and obsession, Chan writes into all of their inheritances — trauma, love, loss, joy, separation — in order to complicate the idea of nostalgia, and redraw their maps toward a home that is not found, but created. The question that echoes throughout these poems: what about the past is worth bringing with us into the future?

Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, organizer, and therapist based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of haunt (Damaged Goods Press), all our futures (PANK), and sick (Black Lawrence Press), winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. They are also a performing member with RAW Taiko Drummers.

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Intertidal: poems from the littoral zone

The littoral zone in a coastal ecosystem ranges from the high-tide mark to the subtidal area, and is defined by the presence of sunlight at the sediment level.

This zone of alternating intervals of submergence and exposure is home to abundant life due to plentiful oxygen and nutrients. On the rocky shores of the Juan de Fuca strait, littoral zone inhabitants withstand crashing waves and constantly changing conditions, as the tides submerge and uncover their habitat.

From the tough holdfasts of a kelp forest to the precise angle of a limpet shell, intertidal creatures are adapted to survive everything the Pacific Ocean can throw at them. An incredible diversity of life thrives in every possible nook and cranny. It is this dynamic world-between-the-tides that spawned these poems.

Zoe Dickinson is a poet and bookseller from Victoria, British Columbia. Her poetry is rooted in the Pacific coastline, with a focus on local ecology and human relationships with nature. She has been published in literary journals such as Existere, Prairie Fire, and Contemporary Verse 2, and her chapbook, Public Transit, was published in 2015 by Leaf Press. She is the Artistic Director of the Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series.