SLT SHKR, by Carter Hemion

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features. SLT SHKR is an exploration of the memories that build the spirit, the life animating the body, and the fire inside the soul. It is a reflection of the ways we are bound to each other and a means of survival in daily fresh starts. SLT SHKR stirs up shadows of nostalgia and the remnants of relationships beyond time. It is a reflection on the realities of surviving rare diseases, falling in and out of love with the self, and reconnecting with a home that never existed inside a constantly changing bodymind. SLT SHKR turns vertigo to sand and blossoms to stone. It weaves together the strings of humanity in every curious memory haunting the uncertain future to find a new path forward. Carter Hemion is a Pacific Northwest-based writer and rare disease advocate. They document life through poetry with much of their work shaped by their experiences with classical Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and its complications. They work in patient advocacy and embrace being a queer, mad creator with a drive to use storytelling for a gentler world.