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"This poem begins where Bulimia ends
or maybe, just maybe, when it started. Where
the differential diagnosis is confused
by decades of self-made violence. Poverty,
colonialism, god, all prisms that will shatter
one day, if not now..."
Part self-interrogation, part confession, part hospital diary, the intense, heartbreakingly frank poems in Brandi Bird's second collection detail the author's ongoing struggles with eating disorders and depression, conditions that disproportionately afflict Indigenous girls, women, and two-spirited persons. These challenging poems investigate the relationship between sexuality and eating disorders as well as how the voyeurism of religion (the idea of being eternally watched) intersects with both of those spheres. They also raise questions about body shaming and body sovereignty-a failed sovereignty in this case, as "sovereignty" itself is a communal concept. In the tradition of poets like Amy Berkowitz (
Tender Points) and Hannah Green (
Xanax Cowboy), the poems in
Pitiful also lay bare the way patriarchy, medical sexism, and bigotry have not only sabotaged the treatment of such conditions but often make them worse.
About the author
BRANDI BIRD is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree, and Métis writer and editor from Treaty 1 territory. They currently live and learn on the land of the Squamish, the Tsleil-Waututh, and the Musqueam peoples (Surrey, B.C). Their debut poetry collection, The All + Flesh (Anansi, 2023), won an Indigenous Voices Award and was a finalist for both the Gerald Lampert and the Governor General’s awards. Brandi Bird is currently completing an MFA at the University of British Columbia.
