Poetry Matters – Shane Neilson

Shane Neilson is a poet, physician, and critic from New Brunswick. He is author of several books of poetry, including Complete Physical (2010), On Shaving Off His Face (2015), Dysphoria (2017), and New Brunswick (2019). As a Vanier postdoctoral scholar at McMaster University, he researches the representations of pain in CanLit. Dysphoria, the final entry in his affect trilogy, was published in 2017 with the Porcupine’s Quill. He has just launched a collection of essays, Constructive Negativity, compiling commentary from different periods of his work. Recipient of the Walrus Poetry Prize and the Hamilton Literary Award for poetry, Neilson currently holds a SSHRC Talent Award.

Neilson focuses on the articulation of pain and disordered affect through poetic form. As poet and editor, he comments on the emergent area of “disability poetics”; as a physician, he considers the value of poetry in medical practice.

For this reading, Poetry Matters is delighted to partner with McGill University’s Osler Library of the History of Medicine (part of ROAAr, Rare & Special Collections, Osler, Art and Archives). Materials from the Osler Collections will be featured at the event. Special thanks to Mary Hague-Yearl, Osler Head Librarian.