Therese Estacion identifies as a member of the Visayan diaspora, an ethnolinguistic group from present day Philippines. Estacion immigrated to Canada with her family when she was ten years of age. She is a teacher living in Toronto and is studying to become a psychotherapist. Estacion also identifies as a disabled person/person with a disability due to amputations.
Poetry
Phantompains
Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2021.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Therese Estacion survived a rare infection that nearly killed her, but not without losing both her legs below the knees, several fingers, and reproductive organs. Phantompains is a visceral, imaginative collection exploring disability, grief and life by interweaving stark memories with dreamlike surrealism.
Taking inspiration from Filipino horror and folk tales, Estacion incorporates some Visayan language into her work, telling stories of mermen, gnomes, and ogres that haunt childhood stories of the Philippines and, then, imaginings in her hospital room, where she spent months recovering after her operations.
Estacion says she wrote these poems out of necessity: an essential task to deal with the trauma of hospitalization and what followed. Now, they are demonstrations of the power of our imaginations to provide catharsis, preserve memory, rebel and even to find self-love.
Links
Publisher Book*hug Press