Mallory Tater
[Author Name]
Biography
Mallory Tater (she/her) is a writer living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver). Her debut novel The Birth Yard was released with HarperCollins Canada in 2020 and her debut book of poetry This Will Be Good was released in 2018 with Book*Hug Press. Mallory was the recipient of CV2’s 2016 Young Buck Poetry Prize and she is the publisher of Rahila’s Ghost Press, a community poetry chapbook press. She currently teaches creative writing at The University of British Columbia and The University of Victoria.
Poetics Statement
“I never thought I’d write so many poems that pay attention to the body, particularly my own body. I was always self-conscious and really loathed the feeling of being in my body. Healing these unhealthy thoughts through poetry brought me closer to my sense of self again. I find our writing about bodies, both physical and emotional, so moving in ways I never thought I would when I was sick with anorexia, feeling insecure and objectified under a patriarchal lens following puberty. Embracing my body and the idea of space and ownership, comfort, became a very unlikely source of inspiration for my writing and I am very grateful it did.
Poetry to me is a genre of community. With the work we do at Rahila’s Ghost Press I have been privileged to meet so many incredible writers with their own unique voices and sense of story-telling. To help house their wonderful work over the past five years has been my favourite poetic endeavour yet.”
Sample of Poet's Work
ANIMALS
A murder of crows
An earth of foxes
A cast of hawks
A forgiveness of girls
SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING
Four girls
who aren’t real
glitter a pair of jeans.
The cuffs conflicted
with sequins.
Four girls weep
on the loopholes,
dream down the fly,
bleed on back rivets.
The pants belt the girls together
during a summer apart.
They wear them
on soccer fields,
at Shakespeare camps,
Wallman’s break-rooms.
On the knees of the pants,
the girls pen
names of men
they love
in bed
and in passing.
One summer I am friendless,
too thin, tired. I join them.
I’m with Bridget in Turkey,
pouring her whiskey,
braiding her forever-hair. She finds bones
of an ancient mother, and
I listen to her mother’s
miscount of pills
to claim dream.
Lena returns to Santorini
for the love of a man
who isn’t there.
I’m there,
kissing her zitless face.
We soak phyllo dough
in her grandmother’s basin
filled with olive oil.
I tell her I love her.
Carmen needs to breathe.
Her parents have learned family
without her. We throw a rock
in her father’s kitchen window,
in Charleston, South Carolina
and maybe we throw rocks
in all American kitchens,
everywhere, forever.
Tibby makes friends
with a sick girl,
has a pregnancy scare.
We stick prices
on shampoos and wallets
until we can’t breathe
but we do and smoke a joint,
exhale, speak of loss later.
They pay for my flight to Greece.
We become five,
jumping from cliffs into sea.
We sing Chantal Kreviazuk.
We don’t cry about men.
The girls hand me the pants,
Wear them
they’ll make you brave,
They’re too long. They don’t t.
They drag
along the mud
as we climb
ladders from ocean
toward the innite blue
of whatsername earth.
ST. BLAISE DAY
My school was so so catholic
we had St. Blaise day each February—
Saint of Afflictions of the Throat.
I shit you not.
The priest would place criss-crossed candles,
unlit, under our chins and bow.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
Stephanie still got sick and spread it to Katie,
Angela, Daniel, me. We still coughed and wiped
snot on our blouses. We coughed loudly
until God heard us.
I used to think of St. Blaise during oral sex,
something so strong in my mouth,
my crimped hair shying in front of my eyes.
Who is the saint of giving good head?
Who is the saint of consent?
And where is the saint that tells young girls
we can say no within washroom stalls?