Description
remember / tidal volume is estimated based on // what’s left in the lung as it closes / remember love is based on tides / as they come in closer
As the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, Jamie was warned by the doctor that due to their underlying health they would not be a priority for critical care treatment. Using the compressed form of a sonnet, they kept rewriting and re-experiencing different voices and identities to explore what it means to face one’s mortality so directly, suddenly, and unexpectedly.
This work became a pamphlet, Shield, following Jamie through the grief of facing death while newly married, and into a place of resilience, resistance, and a commitment to creation against mortality.
i’d rather die / as i’ve lived as i’ve lived filled with love and / i’d rather die fierce as myself
‘These are arresting, heart-stopping poems lit with a rare intensity. Hale’s poems don’t pull any punches, they explore what it is to live in a body and on the way touch the centre of the fragility deep inside all of us. Humane poems that will make you ache.’ – Mona Arshi
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie Hale is a queer / crip artist, curator, poet, writer, screenwriter, playwright, actor, facilitator, trainer and director – otherwise known as ‘busy’, ‘interdisciplinary’, or ‘indecisive’. They create poetry, comedy, scriptwriting, and drama for page, stage, and screen and in Feb 2021 won the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Award in Directing/Theatre-Making. They have a screenplay in development with Channel 4. Their work has been described by Hannah Gadsby as “fantastic”, Jack Thorne as “an extraordinary voice” and the Jerwood Foundation as one of the “leading lights of British poetry”. Jamie currently works as Artistic Director at CRIPtic Arts CIC – a support, development, production, and showcasing organisation for work by and for d/Deaf and disabled people across the Arts. Jamie founded CRIPtic in 2019.
Find out more on Jamie’s Website
