Description

Book Synopsis

Inspired by her experience as a neurodivergent Indigenous woman, Délani Valin''s poems explore the concept of authenticity by experimenting with identities and personas in this kaleidoscopic debut.

In Shapeshifters, Délani Valin explores the cost of finding the perfect mask. Through a lens of urban Métis experience and neurodivergence, Valin takes on a series of personas as an act of empathy as resistance. Some personas are capitalist mascots like the Starbucks siren, Barbie and the Michelin Man, who confide the hopes and frustrations that lay hidden behind their relentless public enthusiasm. Others include psychiatric diagnoses like hypochondria, autism and depression, and unlikely archetypes such as a woman who becomes a land mass by ending the quest to shrink herself. In more confessional poems, the pressure to find relief from otherness often leads to magical thinking: portals, flight, telepathy and incantations all become metaphors for survival. Shapes

Shapeshifters

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    A Paperback / softback by Délani Valin

    £15.52

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    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Wed 25 Nov 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Nightwood Editions
      Published 28 March 2023
      ISBN-13 9780889714281
      978-0889714281
      ISBN-10 0889714282

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Inspired by her experience as a neurodivergent Indigenous woman, Délani Valin''s poems explore the concept of authenticity by experimenting with identities and personas in this kaleidoscopic debut.

      In Shapeshifters, Délani Valin explores the cost of finding the perfect mask. Through a lens of urban Métis experience and neurodivergence, Valin takes on a series of personas as an act of empathy as resistance. Some personas are capitalist mascots like the Starbucks siren, Barbie and the Michelin Man, who confide the hopes and frustrations that lay hidden behind their relentless public enthusiasm. Others include psychiatric diagnoses like hypochondria, autism and depression, and unlikely archetypes such as a woman who becomes a land mass by ending the quest to shrink herself. In more confessional poems, the pressure to find relief from otherness often leads to magical thinking: portals, flight, telepathy and incantations all become metaphors for survival. Shapes

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