Crohnic [Paperback]

A poetic meditation on what it means to live a medicated life, looking toward sites of nature where life and death exist side by side

Crohnicis a brilliant and moving collection of poems that asks, what is the landscape of a medicated life? From their convalescence in a room that overlooks the North Saskatchewan River, author Jason Purcell thinks ecologically with medical records, prescriptions, and dosages, staying attuned to place and to what it might mean to live a life relying on something—in this case, an interminable course of medication—that hurts you in some ways to help you in others. How does the terrain of life change?

Picking up the threads of sickness first plucked inSwollening,Crohniccharts two years of Purcell's treatment for Crohn's disease, journeying from hospital rooms to bogs and muskeg, places where life and death intermingle and create the conditions for one another's flourishing. This is a world populated by coyotes, ermines, steroids, pine, infusion drips, moss, pills, and ice. These other-than-human beings come together inCrohnic, coalescing into relations that together form a personal narrative of the management of chronic illness.

Jason Purcell(they/them) is a writer and musician from amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton, Alberta). They are the author of the poetry collectionsSwollening(Arsenal Pulp Press) andA Place More Hospitable(Anstruther Press). They are a PhD student in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

"Jason Purcell has woven together an engrossing narrative and mastery of language that had me wanting more, reaching for a 'spoiled horizon.' I will return to this book over and over again to admire its form and flow. This is a timeless work that will remain important to queer prairie literature for generations."
—Emily Rlc-