Half Nelson
MACKENZIE SHAW
Mackenzie Shaw's poems grapple with the incomprehensible distance between death and the everyday. How is it that life just goes on? In the small gesture, like the intimacies of a fishing hook or a family writing in concrete, each poem creates a kind of talisman or prayer for endurance. If the world isn't fair, these poems try to tip the balance, wielding memory against the chaos of grief.
—MICHAEL V SMITH, author of Queers Like Me
published December 2023 in a print run of 100 copies
ISBN 978-1-7387253-5-9
Mackenzie “Ken” Shaw (he/they) is a writer and maker from Kitchener, Ontario, now living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded land of the Westbank First Nation in British Columbia. They perform in local open mics and slams, and as the sad and sexy drag king, KENDONTCRY. Mixing original art, poetry, song, and lip sync, Mackenzie explores themes of mental health, sexuality, and gender. This work is a response to the grief of losing their father to ALS and dementia in 2012.
@dontcryken