Hannah Green wages a battle between binary opposites in this new poem
Chainsaw Aesthetic is a poem by the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry winner
Chainsaw Aesthetic is an original poem by Hannah Green. It is part of Identity, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts.
"I wanted to look at binary oppositions and subverting narrative via their deconstruction / flipping them over (there would be no hero without an antihero, no good without evil, etc.) and exploring stranger ways to approach those narratives (there would be no fist without a bruise, no version of myself crying into a tonic water because she loved something so much and she can never have it again). I wanted to be ugly in this piece, shaping the poet-speaker into a sort of romanticized villain," Green told CBC Books.
CBC's IDEAS will host an episode featuring participants from this original series.
Green won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry for Xanax Cowboy.
You can read more works from the Identity series here.
Chainsaw Aesthetic
Other than emails, this is the first thing I have written in a year.
I hope this poem finds you well. I don't know what else you want me to say.
Have you ever loved something so much you can never have it again?
I've been sober for six consecutive months. There would be no truth w/o liars like me.
There would be no binary oppositions w/o our messy lives in the middle.
I have yet to determine the thesis statement of my life but I'm trying —
i.e. I'm a hopeless melancholic, i.e. my attention is deficit and manifests in disorderly conduct.
If I have anything to argue, it is this: when I drunk drive into the sunset it will be legendary.
When I tattoo LOVE on one knuckle and HATE on the other, there will be consequences.
There would be no hero w/o antihero, good w/o evil, order w/o chaos, etc.
Do you see how easy it is to want to be on the wrong side of that backslash —
to turn your back
lashing out at everything?
To be the fist and not the bruise, to careen HATE through drywall and bleed, victorious?
I don't know what's wrong with me—is it the question itself or its cigarette burn of a mark?
To be a dumpster fire of a girl who smells like smoke and likes to play with matches.
To take inventory of your demons instead of taking them to therapy.
(Archaic): During an exorcism, the demon must be named in order to be expelled.
(Modern): During a diagnosis, the illness must be named in order to be medicated.
In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost: take this, it will help.
The power of Pfizer compels you.
The power of Pfizer compels you.
The power of Pfizer compels you.
I went through hell and all I got was this stupid prescription.
I'm my own worst villain by default; I have never been the best at anything.
At the right temperature, we can almost disappear—think about that.
I wanted to be extraordinary but I am extra ordinary instead.
I'm drunk again and feeling nostalgic. Which is to say I live in the past.
Which is to say the past lives in me and this exorcism isn't working.
I know why I like to ruin things. You can psychoanalyze and suck on that
while the highest version of myself sits bound and gagged in the rafters of my brain.
Destroying the world has more sex appeal than saving it.
I mean screw it, right?
I'm stubborn but at least the climate changes.
I don't care how many teeth I have to knock out—
by the end of this you're going to believe I'm ugly.
Because I could have been anything I wanted and I chose this.
Because I'm about to set fire to everything I don't believe in.
I'm trying to finish this poem but I've run out of things to say
so I'm going to go to an All-You-Can-Eat buffet and drink one glass of tap water
before paying my bill and driving home listening to static on the radio.
I can't think of a better way to say I am bored with myself.
I can't think of a better way to say I am bored here.
About Hannah Green
Hannah Green is a Winnipeg-based writer and poetry editor. She was a poetry finalist for the 2021 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. She won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry for Xanax Cowboy.
About the series Identity
The English-language books that won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards in many respects reflect on the idea of changing or shifting identity.
CBC Books asked the 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards winners to reflect further on the theme of identity in original works. The special series explores the complex ways we maintain, construct and subvert who we are and what we represent in the outside world. Chainsaw Aesthetic was Hannah Green's contribution to the series.
