Paper Fort: Oregon Book Awards Finalist: Fall Ill Medicine

You can cast your vote for the 2013 Readers' Choice Award online at oregonlive.com/books. The winner will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on April 8th at the Gerding Theater at the Armory.

This Thursday, March 21st, Carrie Seitzinger will be reading with other Oregon Book Awards finalists at Literary Arts at 7:00 p.m.

Fall Ill Medicine dwells in the body, where memories gather in full color, darkness waits in our deepest feeling trials, and frailties give way to strength.

Freefall Flight

Tonight, I feed myself winter.
It sticks to the tongue, bitter putty.
The spoon's in my mouth
when I go to the window.
Weren't parrots supposed to be flashing
among them in a fury of wide open wings?
A parade of life to remind me
that an entire world exists outside of this.

Then I walk to the window and fall out.
And it is beautiful and I am happy.

"In"Fall Ill Medicine honors its title completely. It's a literary safe house for the ravaged heart. I these poems are ever recorded, they should only be put on vinyl." --Rachel McKibbens, author of Pink Elephant

"Darkness is a comfortable carpet for all. Not everyone can find a way to yank it up from the tacks and flip the thing so that it feels like new medicine and home. Seitzinger does this with a pale grace that doesn't wallow in sorrow, but finds a narrow ease. Welcome to an erotic super-suck that lulls the reader with the Gods of 'ghostcolor,' pink wedding rice and secret places. Here awaits the kinds of places that only hungry poets will unlock." --Derrick Brown, author of Strange Light and President of Write Bloody Publishing.

Carrie Seitzinger is the author of the poetry collection, Fall Ill Medicine (Small Doggies Press, 2012), and the poetry chapbook, The Dots Don't Connect (2004). She is the cofounder and editor of the arts and culture magazine, Nailed. She lives in Portland, Oregon.