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