Obits.

(Paperback)

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WINNER OF THE 2019 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD

In Obits. a speaker tries and fails to write obituaries for those whose memorials are missing, those who are represented only as statistics. She considers victims of mass deaths, fictional characters, and her own aunt, asking what does it mean to be an 'I' mourning a 'you' when both have been othered Centring vulnerability, the various answers to this question pass through trauma, depression, and the experience of being a mixed-race queer woman.

Reviews

"Liems poems are graceful and captivating and she is not afraid to show the dirt, stains, and bugs that are left behind when a body dies. Instead of hiding behind clichs of grief, Liem finds a way to unearth what was never buried to give some of those without an obituary a place to call home." Amy LeBlanc,Plenitude Magazine

Author Bio

Tess Liem lives in Montreal, or Tiotia:ke, the traditional territory of the Kanienkeh:ka people. Her first chapbook, Tell everybody I say hi, was published by Anstruther Press in February 2017. She won The Malahat Reviews Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize in 2015, and her writing appears in The Puritan, Room magazine, The Walrus, and elsewhere.