Disintegrate/Dissociate

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Arielle Twist's Disintegrate/Dissociate is a miraculous debut of poetry that enacts exactly what it summons into the world. I am reminded here that we cannot, and should not, remove the body from story -- we must witness what we break and reciprocate wholly to what we must rebuild. This book is majesty, it is unabashedly honest, heart rupturing so, but also wondrous in its medicine-weaving. From floorboards filled with flora to a world destroyed because the speaker can will it so, from the waving Cree prairie through to a Mi'kmaq oceanic, Twist teaches us that 'if we must survive [then] we must write' and emerges a prominent new otâcimow in Indigenous literature.
-Joshua Whitehead, author of Jonny Appleseed and full-metal indigiqueer

'I will sing with no voice, no language, no song, can you hear it?' Arielle Twist's poetry is striking, visceral, honest. Reading her work is like taking a ginger shot: painful, but ultimately you're better for it. With few words, she conveys so much about the legacies of colonization, the terror of transmisogyny, and the colossal force of them both. Her candour is both urgent and compelling, confrontational and compassionate, world-making with its insistence on another way to live. In a political moment hell-bent on erasing Indigenous trans voices, Twist's Disintegrate/Dissociate is here to stay.
-Alok Vaid-Menon, author of Femme in Public

Arielle Twist's visceral poetry is built and rebuilt through breaking, demonstrating the vitality of destruction. This sharp, absorbing debut collection will break you and then rebirth you.
-Vivek Shraya