'How I Bend Into More Book' Launch

Show Details:
'How I Bend Into More Book' Launch
Date: Thursday, March 13th, 2025
Doors: 6:30PM
Show: 7:00PM
Tickets: Free to attend

The Artesian is wheelchair accessible, all-ages, and a proud supporter of positive spaces initiatives with a zero-tolerance policy towards hate, harassment, and/or discrimination. We reserve the right to remove any patron creating an unsafe environment. The accessible entrance is available via a lift, Please ask staff for help if necessary.

Event Details:

You’re invited to celebrate the launch of Tea Gerbeza’s debut poetry book How I Bend Into More! With special guests Cat Abenstein, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Dayne Blair, and Carla Harris, this will be a night not to miss. The evening will begin with performances by guest poets, a short break, and end with Tea reading from her book. Tea will be signing books after the event. A small special exhibition of artwork made for/inspired by the book will be on display and there will also be a door prize for an exclusive paper-quilled spine necklace made by Tea as well as a scanograph print from Tea’s Painscapes series.

Books by all poets will be for sale and Tea will have exclusive artwork available, too!

Please note that drinks will be for sale by The Artesian (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic).

Masks are highly encouraged during this event (when not eating or drinking) to keep those most vulnerable safe!

Accessibility information:

·       The Artesian is a wheelchair accessible building (elevator is on the side of the building)

·       Microphones will be used throughout the event

·       Low/coloured lighting in the main space

·       Mask friendly event

·       Quiet downstairs area for folks to go if they need a quiet moment

·       Venue is on a main bus route

·       Street parking

About How I Bend Into More:

Based on Tea Gerbeza’s experience with scoliosis, How I Bend Into More re-articulates selfhood in the face of ableism and trauma. Meditating on pain, consent, and disability, this long poem builds a body both visually and linguistically, creating a multimodal space that forges Gerbeza’s grammar of embodiment as an act of reclamation. Paper-quilled shapes represent the poet’s body on the page; these shapes weave between lines of verse and with them the reclaimed disabled body is made. How I Bend Into More is a distinctive poetic debut that challenges ableist perceptions of normalcy, and centers “the double architecture / of  ( metamorphosis (.”

About the poets:

Tea Gerbeza is a queer disabled neurodivergent writer and multimedia artist. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. She is the winner of the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for poetry, and has published widely in magazines including ARC magazine, Action Spectacle, The Poetry Foundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2, among others. Tea resides in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 territory (Regina, SK) with her spouse, three dogs, and cat. She is one of four Pain Poets. How I Bend Into More is her first book. She hopes you spiral art from its pages.

Cat Abenstein (she/her) is a nueroqueer white settler creating in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 (Regina, SK.) A practicing spoken word artist, poet, and arts administrator, she is witness to the connection, community, and identity found through stories. Since 2012, Cat has taken her work to local, provincial, and national stages and has organized, hosted, and facilitated dozens of spoken word events for many organizations. When she’s not consuming books in all formats (yes, audiobooks are reading), she’s dreaming about the ways words weave us all together. She lives with her wife and two cats in a house older than all of their ages combined. 

Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (2016), and a chapbook, Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Event, Vallum, Grain, PRISM, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, among others. Her poems have been featured in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing and The Best Canadian Poetry 2021, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is queer and disabled, and one-quarter of a writing group called The Pain Poets.

Dayne Blair (she/her) is a lesbian writer, artist and philosopher living on Treaty 4 territory and the Homeland of the Métis; you might remember her as “That Weird Girl From High School.” Her poetry and prose examine queerness, disability, existential dread, and identity through speculative narratives, fantastic imagery, and humour. She has somehow tricked the Pain Poets into accepting her as their fourth member. When she’s not at work hacking the planet, she’s spending time with her bird-son Artie or watching horror movies with her loved ones.

Carla Harris (they/she) is a disabled mad queer nonbinary writer, performer and interdisciplinary artist from Treaty 4 territory, living in Regina Saskatchewan. They released their first chapbook, Obtain No Proof with Dis/ Ability Series of Frog Hollow Press, with publications appearing in ANTILANG (2021) League of Canadian Poets (2022), and the Humber Literary Review (2023). Harris is a member of the Pain Poets, and teaches improvisational writing and spoken word performance workshops. Currently, they are developing a book of poetry and an interdisciplinary play, both crafted in the expansive, adaptable framework of #CripTime.