Bøker av Chelsea Dingman

An underlying cynicism lies at the heart of the questions asked by Chelsea Dingman's I, Divided: What is a life worth? Today. Now. Why is that? Who gives anyone permission to be? And how is that determined? In poems that use the science behind chaos theory as a lens for examining illness and agency, Dingman explores the divide between determination and accident, whereby the body becomes a site of exploration as well as elegy in cases of disease such as traumatic brain injury, cancer, and addiction. Much like weather patterns, inherited histories of violence and disease are cyclical. They remain at once determined and yet undetermined, becoming ultimately chaotic. The "I" of the title is fractured over several divides, subordinated to illness and to a past that is invariable, though finally morphs as an agent of change. I, Divided operates as if within a swirling hurricane, beginning and ending amid the same human concerns, tracing a life cycle and its repetition.

This collection speaks to the grief and trauma associated with stillbirth and infertility. But more than that, these poems are concerned with how both parents deal with this trauma without letting it tear them or their relationship apart.

Delves into the issues at the core of a resilient family: kinship, poverty, violence, death, abuse, and grief. The poems follow the speaker, as both mother and daughter, as she travels through harsh and beautiful landscapes in Canada, Sweden, and the United States.