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Perry Gasteiger
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the poet
Manchester-based Canadian poet Perry Gasteiger's work is often described as visceral, haunting and uncomfortable. Her poetry looks at birth, growth and death through different lenses – recasting the mundane as extraordinary, and quite often, grotesque. Perry collaborated with Canadian visual artist Rebecca Payne to publish the experimental book, Bruising Bone: life in bloom. She hopes to do more collaborative, multi-disciplinary work in the future.
the poems
brick by brick
You know, most of us never asked to be a part of history and to be honest it was pretty boring work anyways: brick by brick by brick to get your cheque to buy the bread to feed the kids and who has two kids these days? In this economy! And that's how you make history: brick by brick by brick until your hands bleed and your nails crack and the cement hardens into the whorls of your fingertips and you think this would be the perfect time to rob a bank because there wouldn't even be any fingerprints left to leave. That's history in the making for you: brick by brick by brick until you're sat on the tallest chimney in the western hemisphere looking down on the earth and you're thinking, you know I bet God doesn't have fingerprints either and that's when the wind gusts and the present shivers beneath you and you're thinking you could maybe definitely stick a landing from 1,250 feet in the air if it came to it and pretty soon all there is between you and earth is skin dug into brick until it fuses, and when it's over and they peel you off the lips of history the pads of your fingers tear from your hands and believe me when I tell you: most of us never asked to be there.
Inspired by the superstack in my hometown of Sudbury,
Ontario, and a freak tornado that stranded workers at
the top – just before they completed it.
Leftovers
I eat leftovers on the day
after my mother’s funeral.
I eat them cold from the dish,
pull plastic wrap back and dig in
with my hands, tomato sauce
and mashed potatoes crusting
under my fingernails.
What is left of a person
once they’ve closed the lid
on red lips in a bloodless face
displayed for the sympathy
of the living?
A feeling, an inkling,
that your flesh and bones
don’t quite add up,
that you are something less
than whole.
Songs are sung for mourning ears
as the dead lay deaf and happy,
while people cry into napkins
and paper plates full of lasagna
and warm gravy –
the horizon screams
as the sun sets
her hair on fire
and we let ourselves
fall apart.
In the bloody dawn
of waking,
I collect pieces left behind
and try to fit them
where you used to sit.
But the pieces are still sharp,
not yet worn to sea glass
with our tears
and I find myself
back on the kitchen floor,
trying to inhale your leftovers.
two for joy
and when I came home
I did not know how to love
a thing which did not cut me
down at the knees, did not know
I was wandering streets lined
with bitter ghosts, littered
with bodies I used to wear,
praying to the pavement,
please swallow me,
take me back where I belong;
did not know what it was to slip
into the warmth of place,
to run my hands along the rough
of red brick and press my face
to broken stones and taste
the earth, when I came home
the sky opened up in proud baptism,
drenched me in tears and I opened
my mouth, let the rain fill me,
watched the rot of me wash away,
let myself die one last time, and woke,
finally, to the cries of the magpies
Publishing credits
brick by brick: exclusive first publication by iamb
Leftovers: Natterlogue (work by Natter Bolton night
performers, 2023)
two for joy: Ey Up Again (Written Off Publishing)