Swollening
Jason Purcell's debut collection of poems rests at the intersection of queerness and illness, staking a place for the queer body that has been made sick through living in this world. Part poetic experiment and part memoir, Swollening attempts to diagnose what has been undiagnosable, tracing an uneven path from a lifetime of swallowing bad feelings - homophobia in its external and internalized manifestations, heteronormativity, anxiety surrounding desire, aversion to sex - to a body in revolt.
In poems that speak using the grammar and logics of sickness, Purcell offers a dizzying collision of word and image that is the language of pain alongside the banality of living on. Beginning by reading their own life and body closely and slowly zooming out to read illness in the world, Purcell comes to ask: how might a sick, queer body forgive itself for a natural reaction to living in a sick world and go on toward hope? In Swollening, Purcell coughs up their own poetics of illness, their own aesthetics of pain, to form a tender collection that lands straight in the gut.
A Place More Hospitable
A Place More Hospitable (Anstruther Press, 2019) is Jason Purcell’s debut chapbook, interested in illness and the body, particularly teeth and the stomach, as they rub against the domestic.
Ten Canadian Writers in Context
Ten Canadian Writers in Context (UAP 2016), co-edited by Marie Carrière, Curtis Gillespie, and Jason Purcell, is an anthology of creative writing by ten Canadian writers who have visited the Canadian Literature Centre, each accompanied by a short critical essay.
Awarded a Silver Independent Publisher Award in 2017
Books
Swollening. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022.
Chapbooks
A Place More Hospitable. Anstruther Press, 2019.
Edited Volumes
Poetry
“Thin.” Contemporary Verse 2, 44.4: Sick Poetics, 2022.
“On Acicular Ice.” Contemporary Verse 2, 43.3: 2S+QTBIPOC Bodies, 2021.
“‘Berta Boys.’ Contemporary Verse 2, 43.3: 2S+QTBIPOC Bodies, 2021.
“Kris Knight, The Shadow of the Puer, 2015. Oil on prepared cotton paper, 16 x 12 inches.” Contemporary Verse 2, 43.3: 2S+QTBIPOC Bodies, 2021.
“Kris Knight, The Flying Monkey, 2014, Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.” Best Canadian Poetry 2020, edited by Marilyn Dumont. Biblioasis,
2020.
“Kris Knight, The Flying Monkey, 2014, Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.” Prairie Fire 40.4, 2019.
“Jason sans Argonauts".” YEGWords Blindman Brewing Super Mild Beer Can, 2019.
“Kris Knight, The Embrace, 2017. Oil on prepared cotton paper, 14 x 11 inches.” The Malahat Review, issue 205, Winter 2019.
“The Spore Collector.” The Malahat Review, issue 205, Winter 2019.
“Simon and Vallier in the Tub.” Contemporary Verse 2 41.2, Winter 2018.
“Men in the Gut.” PRISM International 51.7, Fall 2018.
“Talking to You.” #YegWords Coffee Sleeve Project, Summer 2018.
“Witch Faggot.” Poetry is Dead 17: Coven, Spring/Summer 2018.
“Virgo Season.” Poetry is Dead 17: Coven, Spring/Summer 2018.
“I Go Over It Again.” Glass Buffalo, Winter 2018.
Essays
“On Pride and Queer Time.” All Lit Up, June 16, 2022.
Interviews
“Lisa Martin.” Glass Buffalo, Fall 2019.
“Canisia Lubrin.” Glass Buffalo, Winter 2019.
“Erin Wunker.” Glass Buffalo, Fall 2018.
“Daniel Zomparelli.” Glass Buffalo, Fall 2017.
“Zoe Whittall.” Glass Buffalo, Winter 2017.
“Vivek Shraya.” Glass Buffalo, Fall 2016.
Reviews
“Editing as Cultural Practice in Canada, edited by Dean Irvine and Smaro Kamboureli.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada,
Vol. 55, No. 1 (2017).
“The Heavy Blanks: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart.” Open Letters Monthly, August 2013.
Presentations
“Getting Inside the Bag: Building a Digital Research Archive,” with Dylan Bateman and Jennifer Quist. Digital Narratives Around the World.
University of Alberta, Edmonton. May 18, 2017.
“‘We Consign Her to the Dark’: Being the Digital Witness in Michael Helm’s Cities of Refuge.” Canadian Literature Centre: Maladies of the
Soul, Emotion, Affect / Maladies d’lâme, émotion, affect. Banff Centre, Banff. September 22-25, 2016.
“Safely Different: Canada Reads and the Middlebrow Reading of Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion.” Reading Identity: In Context
Undergraduate Conference. MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta. February 7, 2015
“The Second Self: Interpretations of Homosexuality in the Epic Hero.” Reading Identity: Inside/Out Undergraduate Conference. MacEwan
University, Edmonton, Alberta. February 2, 2013.