Poetry, Poetics and Experiential Knowledge of Disability:
A conversation with Tea Gerbeza and Emilia Nielsen: November 24, 2021

Poet and professor Emilia Nielsen, and poet and multimedia artist Tea Gerbeza explore the many ways disability shows up in life, art, and writing. Nielsen and Gerbeza urge for a rethinking of disability poetry so that it might include fierce love, pleasure, and even joy, all while unpacking ableism and ableist common sense logics. Here, the poetry and poetics of disability aspire to be as disruptive and unruly as the bodies and minds from which the work emerges.
Selected Recent Poetry Readings
- 2019 – Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13
- 2018 – Edmonton Poetry Festival, Edmonton, AB, April 26
- 2018 – Art Bar Poetry Series, Toronto, ON, October 23
- 2018 – Common Reading Series, Toronto, ON, August 27
Selected Recent Scholarly Presentations
- 2021 “Poetry, Poetics and Experiential Knowledge of Disability.” Cross Pollinations: Health Humanities Virtual Rounds Series. Sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities and the Health Arts Research Centre, November 24
- 2019 “Exploring the Poetry and Poetics of Chronic Illness: Precarity, Care, Collective Affinity.” Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13
- 2018 “The Poetics and Ethics of Living with Chronic Illness: Exploring Feminist, Queer, Crip Canadian Poetry.” Indigenous, Canadian and Québécois Feminist Production Today, The Banff Centre, Banff, AB, October 11-14