Catriona Strang
Biography
A founding member of the Institute for Domestic Research, Catriona Strang is the author of Low Fancy, Corked, Reveries of a Solitary Biker, and Unfuckable Lardass and co-author of Busted, Cold Trip, and Light Sweet Crude with the late Nancy Shaw, whose selected works, The Gorge, she edited.
She frequently collaborates with composer Jacqueline Leggatt, and lives with her two grown kids on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ Lands.
Sample of Poet's Work
Fuck variations
1.
unjustly fuck-belly
rapture, hopeless
insert or rough-chat
counsel – some lens
for unseeing all we
did fuck
up
2.
sometimes pain fucks
me sideways, anglo-
saxon straining at
my own margins my
fucked back sets
these teeth of mine
in the mouth-margin
sometimes I can’t stand
grit-fucking, sometimes
that’s my fretful de-
centred edge
4.
but there’s still hard
grit between
the teeth in my mouth
and what about
the debt-fucked?
fulling buds on my
feckless brain, but really
loan me any other
fucking function
6.
when did I
come so closely
to resemble
the Venus of
Willendorf how
deep into the
earth might my
spine dissolve why
am I ambivalent how
hard can my tongue
press against my
teeth how far
will that red stain
spread feels good
until you stop
scratching how
fucked up
is that
9.
sideways straining
in this mouth-grit, some
fulsome folly or
febrile inset rupture, graft’s
candid rustling grips
ruin, all roiling: people, what
the fuck?
from Tend: A Few Knots
Knot 1: Yet again
Ever since conjecture emptied, it’s
as if I’d collared you
Ever since conjunctions ruptured, it’s as if I’d
conned you
Ever since junctures collated, it’s as
If I’d clocked insistence
It’s as simple
as that, yeah
Ever since conjunctions joined, it’s as if I’d cupped
some foetid subsistence
Even since conniptions jointed, it’s
as if you’d clipped me
Ever since fervour churned, it’s as
if detritus nipped me
Ever since she decided, she
decides
Ever since consumption bolted, it’s
churned me
Ever since conditions slipped
I’m desiccated
Ever since contraptions shot it’s as if
she’d shunted
It’s as thickened as
me, sure
Ever since their florid
collapse, I’ve enjoined
Ever since this disjuncture
it’s as if grief rebounds
Ever since that floral striping it’s
a fluid return
It’s as febrile as this
yup
Ever since this incomparable
peach, I’m a ruined wilt
Ever since the safety net unravelled
it’s sticky night blood
Ever since the sky like a
beach, it’s as slippery as
that
yeah
Knot 3
Yet again I force my own
imperfectly bonehead
hand, yet immobile
again torpor resorts to post
cards as my twisted
spine tweaks vizi-
slit solace in
turpitude and
the intercession of
trees – will we ever
adapt? – again
displaying an almost
fanatical devotion to
Marmite, I found
myself unable to pick
berries, yet at
least I can maybe
wrest back some
impinging forces
Unravelling: some complications
Wresting back from impingement, a transitory attempt stitching lucid for a minute, maybe. Who gets to articulate? It’s as though subsistence collated, decidedly chuffed by my designated strut, a thickly fluid stomp. Unceasing care, renewed apprehension, persistent joy, unfolding ruin, and still no desire to walk away.
Knot 5: A ruin of myself
(a Strangly worded letter)
That’s all
gorn now
care
unfolded
in time in
creasing
caresses
conked
or somehow
implicated
this pliable
placation treads
a seasonal
tilt, a seer’s
lift, in labour’s
unceasing bilk
that life’s
gone all ginger
for winter
Knot 8: The Gift (A Very Domestic Predicament)
Living where I am not, it’s another winter of malcontent. Now there are mushrooms. Wander away, as if the frozen aftermath of this delirious unstitching might unfound my nit-licking, or at least permit me to move smoothly from one itch to another. Having utterly lost track, insert a further line here, because grief landed today, in the kitchen warmth of my dreams. Barf me a river – the truth is, I’d prefer to stop thinking.
Knot 9: She swelling around us
looks to me like
suddenly feeling not
so – there’s no point
just sitting
here, this one
hey, this
one looks like
power, feels like
attachment, a moment of
great delicacy
but not so great
in my head
