Phantompains

By Therese Estacion

Therese Estacion survived a rare infection that nearly killed her, but not without losing both her legs below the knees, several fingers, and reproductive organs. Phantompains is a visceral, imaginative collection exploring disability, grief and life by interweaving stark memories with dreamlike surrealism.

Taking inspiration from Filipino horror and folk tales, Estacion incorporates some Visayan language into her work, telling stories of mermen, gnomes, and ogres that haunt childhood stories of the Philippines and, then, imaginings in her hospital room, where she spent months recovering after her operations.

Estacion says she wrote these poems out of necessity: an essential task to deal with the trauma of hospitalization and what followed. Now, they are demonstrations of the power of our imaginations to provide catharsis, preserve memory, rebel and even to find self-love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781771666879

Book preview

Black cover with an oval window showing a woven and fraying body against a mountainous lanscape at sunsetTitle page: Phantompains: Poems by Therese Estacion. Published by Book*huge Press, Toront, 2021

FIRST EDITION

Copyright © 2021 by Therese Estacion. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Phantompains / Therese Estacion.

Names: Estacion, Therese, 1983– author.

Description: Poems. | Text in English; includes some text in Visayan.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210105895 |

Canadiana (ebook) 20210106271

   ISBN 9781771666862 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771666879 (EPUB)

   ISBN 9781771666886 (PDF) | ISBN 9781771666893 (Kindle)

Classification: LCC PS8609.S73 P53 2021 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Book*hug Press also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

Cover artwork by Marigold Santos: shroud in threadbare light 1 (detail), 2020, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of the artist

Design and typesetting: Lind Design

Type: Mundo Serif, Tungsten and Trade Gothic Next LT

Book*hug Press acknowledges that the land on which we operate is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. We recognize the enduring presence of many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and are grateful for the opportunity to meet and work on this territory.

To my parents—Jose and Maria Theresa

To my sister—Ann

To Ipo—Olivia

To L—Ezra

She is too raw to be cooked

—Herminia Meñez

As uncomfortable as vomiting is,

it can be very instructive

—Deng Ming-Dao

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Abat/Monsters

Agta

Duwende

Afloat

Tianak

The White Lady of the Philippines

Aswang

Blood and Absence Flows

Ancho

Lady of Sorrows

Ama&Apo

Smoke Struck

Tito Joey

Elegy for Ang Kong

Staying Present

Got Sick

Pee

Iron Body

Coma Dreams

Hands

The Amputee by the Magnolia Tree

The ABG (Able-Bodied Gaze)

Report on Phantompains

ICU I

ICU II

ICU III

A Task

Thinking about things again:misery during leg amputations month

Eunuched Female

EF I

EF II

EF III

EF IV

EF V

Resources/Sources

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Colophon

*

Once upon a time the spectacle       A young woman flatlined herself into oblivion       Seemingly so       Really she became the subject       A body made machine-dependent, tube down her throat her holes sliced and closed       lines for the drip taped to her skin       Organ removed       Her body was dead dying then automatic pilot       One time they brushed her tender gums so hard her mouth bled

Another time they would not let her speak to her mother father sister anyone       Apparently she needed sleep       Still she forced