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    ISBN: 9780889229815 | Paperback

    160 pages | Pub. Date: 20160408
    6 W × 9 H × 1 D inches
    Backlist | Poetry | Bisac: POE011000
    Rights: WORLD

Weyman Chan’s fifth collection takes poetry to the laboratory, splicing a layered, tactile network that is Human Tissue.

Short lyric poems navigate personal experience and memory, then weave into serial poems such as “Parables for Frankenstein,” diving into the material conditions of hybridity to construct the symbiotic self of a prototype misfit. “Panic Room,” another serial poem probes the loner whose isolation at a house party takes a sinister turn, and “Unboxing the Clone” explores the causality of creation, where “trace beings” are felt in flesh and voiced in colloquial speech.

Human Tissue creates a language that is intimate while acknowledging relations to the social environment. Accompanied by the tones of an erhu, archaic Anglo-Saxon language jostles with Chinese, and self-censure meets Faust and Judith Butler to ask the vital questions of origin. Chan shows us how we come to settle with histories of uncertain origin, the presence of science and technology in the mediated body, and how we forge “not-knowing” as a vibrant way of being.

“We get only what is absolutely necessary, what adds to the image being presented. The end result is economic, vivid, and clear.”
The Cascade

By Weyman Chan

Weyman Chan’s second book of poetry, Noise From the Laundry, was a finalist for the 2008 Governor General’s Award. He is the poetry editor of Calgary’s experimental literary magazine, fillingStation.

Read more about Weyman Chan


news | 2016-07-14
Tonight in New York City, the Poets House Poetry Publication Showcase opens New York City

…this year’s showcase: Cosmophilia by Rahat Kurd, Human Tissue by Weyman Chan, Impeccable Regret by Judith …


news | 2016-05-11
Listen: Full audio recording of our recent Vancouver launch

…is introduced at minute 38:19 and then reads from Human Tissue. bill bissett is introduced at minute 54:35 and …


news | 2016-04-27
Photos from our big launch last night

…find their seats again in Pyatt Hall The cover of Human Tissue is projected just before its author’s reading –  … way, big and beautiful! Weyman Chan reads from Human Tissue, delighting the audience with his clever and …


news | 2016-04-26
Two quadruple book launches this week!

…books, Injun, th book, Pound @ Guantánamo, and Human Tissue. In Vancouver, Carl Peters will also launch …


news | 2016-04-18
This week! Weyman Chan at the Edmonton Poetry Festival

…reading from his new collection of poetry, Human Tissue . Brown Bag Lunch: The Science-Poetry Sandwich …


news | 2016-04-13
Our final Spring 2016 poetry title is here – Human Tissue!

…other – but can’t. A recurring motif throughout Human Tissue ($18.95) is the overarching empty universal space …


news | 2016-01-20
A look at what’s coming this spring

…as an approach 2 heeling sorrow denial.” Human Tissue is a new collection by Weyman Chan that explores …