Description
Selected by CBC Books as a 2021 Best Book of Poetry & Shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
MIRACULOUS SICKNESS deals with society's views and treatment of schizophrenia from ancient times to modern day. From the cure for demon possession to the recovery model, MIRACULOUS SICKNESS sheds light on a subject matter still shrouded in misconceptions and myth. In this collection of poetry, we get a sense how our approach to dealing with mental illness and those affected has evolved, yet how far we have yet to go. Skillfully wrought poems that detail her own lived experience, the poet expounds upon difficult terrain with careful footing so as to create a dialogue for all to consider.
Poetry.
“ky perraun gives us a heart breaking and harrowing history of mental illness through the ages where horrors are prescribed and endured, the afflicted tortured into submission and then deemed cured. From her own experiences with schizophrenia, perraun creates highly personal poems, nicotine brain balms, “lotus blossoms on the ponds of eternity,” which reflect truth and chemical clouds of salvation.”
— Christian McPherson, author of Walking on the Beaches of Temporal Candy
“With poems like these, perraun interrogates the notions of “treatment” and “cure”.”
— Prairie Books Now
Author Bio
ky perraun is an Edmonton poet and writing group facilitator, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1997. Having had her first poetry publication in 1983, while in journalism school, she continued submitting to magazines and anthologies throughout the decades, despite her diagnosis. In the early 2000s she helped form Right Heart Press, a micropress collective, which published her chapbook, Paging Dr.G. In 2017 she received a Canada Council Cultivate Grant to produce a manuscript detailing schizophrenic treatments throughout history, which became MIRACULOUS SICKNESS, to be released by At Bay Press in 2021.
Author City: CALGARY, AB CAN