Rooted in the indescribability and disembodiment of pain, Nisa Malli’s Allodynia looks outward to space and the future of humankind, as well as inward to the body. In “Pain Log”, a suite of body-horror poems, she explores illness as a haunting or possession: “At home, my stitches / undid themselves, fevers pet me // like a dog, my eyes opened / backwards. Sleep ghosted me // more than usual.” In “Ship’s Log,” a near-future speculative suite of poems, Malli turns to themes of alienness, artificial intelligence, and the impossibility of translation; danger, intimacy, and war; as well as the worlds we choose to build together. Allodynia is a highly anticipated poetic debut that more than fulfills the promise of its author’s bpNichol award winning chapbook Remitting.

Nisa Malli is a writer and a researcher, born in Winnipeg and currently living in Toronto. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre and Artscape Gibraltar Point. Her first chapbook, Remitting (Baseline Press), won the bpNichol Prize and her work has been nominated for a Rhysling Award and the Best of the Net Anthology.

Nissa Malli's profile page