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Two Poems: echolalia echolalia

In her highly-lauded debut collection echolalia echolalia (Brick Books), B.C.-based poet Jane Shi considers queer, disabled, and diasporic experiences. Exploring various forms, Shi crafts an inventive debut that critiques ongoing inequities, dehumanizing ideologies, and the body politic.

Read two poems from the collection, below.

The cover of echolalia echolalia by Jane Shi

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Two Poems from echolalia echolalia by Jane Shi

how do u say help me in yr language how much ginseng do u take each morning how do u say fed up in yr language what’s yr favourite tea how do u say no more in yr language did u like these dumplings i made u what colour is precious in yr language how much baijiu do i pour u can u hear the cicadas in yr language do u like this painting i made what storms do i part in yr language what do u think of corn oh oh oh what of u am i holding in yr language how do u fold yr dumplings tho what do i let go of in yr language n what about this pomegranate what will it take in yr language how do u do yr hair what would disappoint yr language how do u like yr spices how do u stay in yr language i really like donut peaches do i keep searching in yr language do u like them too how would u pronounce my name



Dare Me, every time u try 2 apologize & acknowledge the things u did when u were hurt u burst into tears & stop yrself from doing it. y?? u ask yr best friend like an angry fy buzzing thru the phone—he tells u we r simultaneously all the ages we once were inside & not just our adult bodies. 2 apologize 4 this is also 2 apologize 2 the kid u punched when u were seven & 2 apologize 2 yr elementary school bully even tho that was a hecked up thing she did with the group of other kids in the fshbowl. they tore up yr internal netspeak like they would at every misspoken ‘th’ if u hadn’t torpedoed yr mouth thru g-force & relativity each intentional misspelling a hazard against catapult piled on top of u on xanga told u 2 go back 2 HK even tho u r not from HK but some of their parents were. who taught them this lash-out grief. who taught u. every1’s heard a dialect or 2 of that 1. 2 get back to The Apology though: it isn’t Fair 2 ask any1 else 2 reParent u if they know adult u & had nothing to do with happened to u when u were eleven. people were responsible tho. ask the Grandmothers. u thought North American Protestantism was like Daoism & that was the only mistake u made. an apology can’t carry an elephant or a hippocampus. we aren’t born 2 stay clean. fsts fresh apricots then. little jane, little jane. u can delete this if u want. no one needs to forgive u.

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Jane Shi lives on the occupied, stolen, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Her writing has appeared in the Disability Visibility Blog, Briarpatch Magazine, The Offing, and Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press), among others. She is the winner of The Capilano Review’s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest and the author of the chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022).

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To purchase a copy of echolalia echolalia from us or your favourite indie bookstore, click here.

For more from Two Poems, click here.

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