BLOODHOUND
a chapbook collection
BLOODHOUND is a creature underneath, resurfaced, gnashing in corner, panting belly-up. Focusing on the idea of the body as a multiple, ever-shifting site, the work materializes as a series of seven chapbooks that each highlight a particular, and personal, aspect of bodying, contrasting moments of ephemeral poetry with intimate, blunt storytelling and bright visuals.
This work was my bachelor's thesis project at OCADu, where it was exhibited at GradEx 109 from May 1-5th, 2024, and was awarded the Creative Writing Program’s 2024 Nora E. Vaughan Medal.
Available for purchase on the Store tab, including free digital downloads and soon-to-be-posted accessible editions.
I: STAY
An exploration into childhood, privilege, and the intersections of a comfortable white upbringing
// white boy poetry
II: SNARL
Taunt around the idea of queerness, dip from the public to the personal, from love letter to snarky indictment / tension teeming in the air.
// fag poetry
III: BEG
Down on knee at your alter / unraveling it all by the vein. Braining through fog, therapy, anarchy, madness / making memories out of the scrap.
// madpoetry
IV: WHIMPER
Those spaces where chronic illness seems to fog up the room / insects and crunching and feeling every eye stare at, then past
// crip poetry
V: SPAYED & NEUTERED
The trans body as in: beyond a duality, birthed upon liberatory-political. Of bleeding & being beaten & all in more ways than one
// tranny poetry
VI: DIRT PAW RUN!
A dissection into the idea of passing, across category / in tangible effects. The passing of gender, of wealth, of body, of mind, of movement.
// trauma, white supremacy, and getting mad at rich ppl poetry
VII: DIGGING
Items lining pockets / home / soul: what, in those tangible, non-fleshy ways, compose a body? What parts of yourself do you hunt for?
// a collection of very important objects
REFERENCE LIBRARY
A collection of referenced materiel & sources of inspiration during the writing and creation of this project. References that are mentioned in multiple categories will be italicized after the first time they appear.
POETRY & PROSE
We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel. (2020).
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankin. (2014).
“There’s No Trace of the Word ‘Transgender’ in Adrienne Rich’s Biography” by Torrin A. Greathouse. (2022).
Various issues of The Gargoyle, edited by Gabriel Yuan and Salma Ragheb. (2023-2024).
The Saddle Hurts, Too by Breezy. (2020).
What I Saw by Nic Wilson. (2020).
Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night by Morgan Parker. (2015).
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom. (2016).
A History of My Brief Body by Billy Ray Belcourt (2020).
Prude Mag issue 2, edited by Twoey Gray and Rea Sweets. (2023).
I Want Everybody to Live Very Close by Lord Cowboy. (2022).
VISUAL ART & COMICS
OPEN / 24 HOURS by Clara Lynus. (2019).
Big Kids (2016), Familiar Face (2020), & Birds of Maine (2022) by Michael DeForge.
One! Hundred! Demons! by Lynda Barry. (2002).
A Year in the Allotment by Black Lodge Press.
All You Need is Dynamite by Black Lodge Press.
Abolition is a Presence by Dan Nott. (2020).
The general work of Gran Fury. (1988-1995).
Silence = Death by Robin Finn (aka @fiddleheadfinn). (2022).
Enormity by Tender Heart Press. (2022).
All The Things I Tried to Say but Couldn’t Remember (series) by Gary Cannone. (2023).
ABC’s of my Mom’s Kitchen by @printsbynat. (2023).
I have missed you (Community Care is the Intimacy I Need) by Jennifer Bastian. (2021).
ON CRIPPING
“On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs. (1986).
“Toronto Crip City” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. (2018).
10 Principles of Disability Justice by Sins Invalid. (2015).
NIH Release: Severe COVID-19 may lead to long-term innate immune system changes. (2023).
NIH Release: SARS-CoV-2 infection weakens immune-cell response to vaccination. (2023).
COVID-19: Study Suggests Long-term Damage to Immune System by Infection Control Today. (2023).
COVID-19 Wastewater Surveillance in Ontario
'We're clearly in a wave:' Ontario's COVID-19 wastewater signal is more than double what it was at this time last year by CP24, December 7, 2023.
“Okay so it looks like we’re going pre-germ theory from this point forward . . .” by Amanda Hu (@amandalhu). Statement continued in linked tweet thread. (2023).
“there is a militant disability politic!” by @this_autonomia. (2023).
ON LIBERATION
The SPIT! Manifesto Reader: A Selection of Historical and Contemporary Queer Manifestos edited by SPIT! (Sodomites, Perverts, Inverts Together!). (2017).
toward the queerest insurrection by the Mary Nardini gang. (2014).
“I was asked how many real poets we need. I said: We need enough real poets who can together write a single poem that stops this genocide” by Mosab Abu Toha.(2024).
“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House” by Audre Lorde.(1979).
“Art On My Mind” by bell hooks. (1995).
“You cannot fake liberation” by YK Hong. Statement continued in linked post. (2023).
pridegrants.ca by Tom Hooper. (2022).
PrideToronto repaying over $505k after federal grant controversy by CBC News, January 25th 2024.
We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel. (2020).
All You Need is Dynamite by Black Lodge Press.
ON TRANSSEXUALITY
“Someday we’ll talk about how prominent LGBTQ+ figures appropriated and stole Indigenous herstories of “gender-variance” to affirm who they are while materially benefitting from the removal, displacement, and genocide of our Indigenous Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Relatives” by @dineaesthetics (a.k.a. Charlie Amáyá Scott). Statement continued in linked threads post. (2024).
“Y’know . . . we don’t talk enough about how violent White Trans People’s efforts to pass are violent towards Black, Indigenous and Trans People of Color within the US Empire . . .” by @dineaesthetics (a.k.a. Charlie Amáyá Scott). Statement continued in linked threads post. (2024).
Settler TransNationalism: The Colonial Politics of White Trans Passing on Stolen Land by Jamey Jesperson. (2022).
A Scientific Study of Transsexuality by Oscar Woodiwiss. (2023).
Gendertrash issues 1-4, edited by Xanthra Phillippa and Mirha-Soleil Ross. (1993-1995).
Anti-Trans Legislative and Policy Risk Map by Celeste Trianon
2024 anti-trans bills tracker, translegislation.com
Ford's Drug Plan Changes Will Out Many Young Adults' Private Lives To Parents by HuffPost Canada, 2018.
My clinic saves lives. The Ford government’s funding cuts to virtual health care will shut us down by Toronto Life, 2023.
'Parents must be fully involved' in student's decision to change pronouns, Ontario education minister says by CTV News, August 2023.
Students face uncertainty as legal battle brews over N.B.'s gender-identity policy by CBC News, September 2023.
Sask. government passes Parents' Bill of Rights by CBC News, October 2023.
Danielle Smith unveils sweeping changes to Alberta's student gender identity, sports and surgery policies by CBC News, January 31, 2024.
Pierre Poilievre defends Alberta Premier Smith on transgender policies by CBC News, February 6, 2024.
“There’s No Trace of the Word ‘Transgender’ in Adrienne Rich’s Biography” by Torrin A. Greathouse. (2022).
The SPIT! Manifesto Reader: A Selection of Historical and Contemporary Queer Manifestos edited by SPIT! (Sodomites, Perverts, InvertsTogether!). (2017).
toward the queerest insurrection by the Mary Nardini gang. (2014).
We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel. (2020).
ON STOLEN LAND
A Glossary of Haunting by Eve Tuck and C. Ree. (2013).
Decolonization is not a metaphor by Eve Tuck and K.W. Yang. (2012).
Settler Sexuality: An Indigenous Feminist Zine by K’É Infoshop. (2019).
“Someday we’ll talk about how prominent LGBTQ+ figures appropriated and stole Indigenous herstories of “gender-variance” to affirm who they are while materially benefitting from the removal, displacement, and genocide of our Indigenous Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Relatives” by @dineaesthetics (a.k.a. Charlie Amáyá Scott). Statement continued in linked threads post. (2024).
“Y’know . . . we don’t talk enough about how violent White Trans People’s efforts to pass are violent towards Black, Indigenous and Trans People of Color within the US Empire . . .” by @dineaesthetics (a.k.a. Charlie Amáyá Scott). Statement continued in linked threads post. (2024).
Settler TransNationalism: The Colonial Politics of White Trans Passing on Stolen Land by Jamey Jesperson. (2022).
“I was asked how many real poets we need. I said: We need enough real poets who can together write a single poem that stops this genocide” by Mosab Abu Toha. (2024).
PLAYLIST
"A Liberated Black and Trans Future (w/ maya finoh)" from Gender Spiral, hosted by Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas. (2023).
"Unmasking and re-MASCing (w/ Dr. Devon Price)" from Gender Spiral, hosted by Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas. (2023).
"Nausea" and "You, In Weird Cities" from We Cool? by Jeff Rosenstock. (2015).
"Androgyny", from Beautiful Garbage (2001) and "Queer" and "Subhuman" from Garbage (1995) by Garbage.
"Circling the Drain", "Ferrari", and "Huperzine Dreams" from Let's Start Degeneracy by Microwave. (2024).
"Seek & Destroy", "Low", and "Kill Bill" from SOS by SZA. (2022).
"The Bends" from Some Rap Songs by Earl Sweatshirt. (2018).
"Centipede" by FIDLAR. (2023).
"Swamp Bitches" from she / her / black bitch by Doechii ft. Rico Nasty. (2022).
"Queer as in Fuck You" by Dog Park Dissidents. (2017).
To be updated further.
FONTS
Bianzhidai by Xiaoyuan Gao, 2023. SIL Open License Font. Used in BEG.
Roberte by Eugénie Bidaut, 2023. SIL Open License Font. Used in WHIMPER.
G.B. Jones Lite by Nat Pyper, 2018. SIL Open License Font. Used in SPAYED & NEUTERED.
MBA Slice Mono by Naksyn UA Baluiev, 2023. Free Commercial Use License. Used in SPAYED & NEUTERED.
Robert Ford by Nat Pyper, 2018. SIL Open License Font. Used in DIRT PAW RUN!
PicNic by Mariel Nils, 2022. SIL Open License Font. Used in DIGGING.
Misc. Other Fonts Used: Futura PT, Privé Regular, Hanken Grotesk