Grenoside - Preorder

Jessica Popeski's grenoside turns back time, multiple generations, transporting the reader to war-torn Sheffield, the birthplace of stainless steel, a city flattened by The Blitz and other air raids, and where “headz were rollin down snig hill.” Written by a descendant of anti-Zionist, secular Ashkenazi Jews and World War II veterans, these poems ask loud questions about why, for decades, depression has decorated the medical notes of the author's family, as if the ink stayed wet, rubbing from one manila folder to the next. Written phonetically in Yorkshire dialect, grenoside explores the matrilineal inheritance of class-related song and oral identity, historically suppressed voices, womanness, madness, accent, dialect, and class.

"Of the many deaths at the heart of this book-length exploration of grief, loss, and longing, the most central is the death of the able-bodied self. At the close of 'dreamsongs for two working feet,' the speaker of the poem, reflecting on a five year period of disability, asks of the reader, and of themself, “what will i be now?” A collection that expertly conflates personal crisis, family genealogy, and nostalgic reverie, Jessica Popeski’s grenoside is a candid and eye-opening study of what it means to be both suddenly and permanently disabled in the world." – Phillip Crymble

"grenoside is a book of voices: living and remembered, musical, conversational, aphoristic, full of monologues and stories, the common names of birds and trees that mark out particular neighbourhoods, and everywhere, even in the most painful scenes, bouquets and vases and garlands of flowers. Jessica Popeski has a voice like no other."  — Roo Borson

"In grenoside, Popeski takes the reader through a catastrophic change in life. There is a preciseness and economy to the words on the page, giving the feeling of shock, disassociation and resilience. I could feel myself grind teeth as I absorbed the stark medical language, the pain of recovery, while falling into a life that was already dangerous. — Charlie Petch, author of Infinite Audition