Tea Gerbeza

Pain Pathways

(listen to the poem, read by the artist/author)

A scanner photograph of a paper woven bed. The pillows are made of blue paper strips, while the “covers” are of white paper strips with the words and phrases: “again,” “to feel,” “safe to,” “here,” “stuck in bed,” “pain pathways,” and “rooted at the small of my back” repeated on different strips. There are several glitches throughout the visual poem that distort portions of the woven bed.
A scanner photograph of a paper woven bed. The pillows are made of blue paper strips, while the “covers” are of white paper strips with the words and phrases: “again,” “to feel,” “safe to,” “here,” “stuck in bed,” “pain pathways,” and “rooted at the small of my back” repeated on different strips. There are several glitches throughout the visual poem that distort portions of the woven bed.

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About the Artist/Author

Tea Gerbeza (she/her) is a queer disabled poet and multimedia artist. Most recently, her scanograph, “My Father Catches Me Confronting Memory,” won an Honourable Mention in Room magazine’s 2020 Cover Art Contest, and she was a finalist for Palette Poetry’s 2021 Emerging Poet Prize. Tea’s new work appears or is forthcoming in the anthologies Nothing Without Us Too (Renaissance Press) and 101 Portraits (SandCrab Press), the Literary Review of Canada, Contemporary Verse 2, and untethered magazine. Tea is a 2022 Zoeglossia Fellow. She resides in the Canadian prairies with her spouse and three corgis. Find out more on teagerbeza.com.