Leanne Dunic
Leanne Dunic is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer. Her work has won several honors, including the Ema Saiko Poetry Fellowship and Alice Munro Short Story Award. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Leanne is the Artistic Director of the Powell Street Festival Society and is the singer/guitarist of The Deep Cove. To Love the Coming End is her first book, and was named one of the best poetry books of 2017 by Entropy Magazine. Her most recent work is a book of lyric prose and photographs entitled Wet (Talonbooks 2024).
2024 Jack Straw Alumni Poetry Series:
“One and Half of You is a stunning constellation of sibling love, childhood, heritage, place, and sexuality — language punctuating each star with inquisitive ache. Full of visceral imagery and narrative leaps, Dunic dives into the intimate depths of birthmarks, of mixed race identity, of whiteness, of what it means to remember when memory moves like ‘slow slow crumbs of earth.’ This is a book that is not afraid to ask: where do we go from here, in these messy spaces of division and connection? Dunic beautifully answers: ‘love is full of defiant compulsions. Inhale. Wear it like rubies.'”
–Jane Wong
Birthmarks: some have vanished, but then
again, nostalgia distorts.
Sometimes I forget that I’m Chinese.
That I’m not.
