Bad Weather Mammals: Poems

by Ashley-Elizabeth Best

“The sick should be good. / It is a kind of undoing,” Ashley-Elizabeth Best writes in her second collection. Bad Weather Mammals navigates the devastations and joys of living in a disabled and traumatized body. By taking a backward glance, she traces how growing up under the maladaptive bureaucracy of social services with a single disabled mother and five younger siblings led her to a precarious future in which she is also disabled and living on social assistance. In poems that explore a variety of formal constraints, such as the suite “ODSP 1, 2, & 3,” which infuses government forms with lyric poetry, she suggests all the ways the medical and bureaucratic systems can dehumanize and traumatize our most vulnerable citizens. By digging deep into her own experiences, Best has archived the ways we fail each other in our most desperate times — while at the same time outlining how we can show up to revel in disabled joy and community. Bad Weather Mammals disassembles dominant narratives about how disabled individuals should be and reconceptualizes the embodied experiences that recenter us in our own narrative.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

80 pages, Paperback

Published September 17, 2024

About the author

Ashley-Elizabeth Best is a disabled poet and essayist from Kingston, Ontario. Her debut collection of poetry, Slow States of Collapse, was published with ECW Press, and her most recent chapbook, Alignment is available from Rahila's Ghost Press.

Reviews

[Lexi Denee · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press of the eARC of this touching collection.**

While I have a hard time reviewing poetry, I can say that this was one of my favorite collections I have read in the past couple of years. I felt deeply for the narrator and our society as a whole, as they reflected on being disabled and the challenges that carries with it.

Some of the poems in this collection also felt like they were about womanhood and how sometimes things happen to us outside of our control. These poems perfectly capture the helplessness of just floating along when we aren't able to impact the external stressors that we face.

In lieu of a longer review, here are my favorite quotes from this collection:

"Fear was so real it held space."

"Those you love don't need you unless you're suffering."

"...where I can believe the mind is in the head and nobody is missing."

"Everyone wants to hear how your mind has betrayed you, but there was no disloyalty, just little stories you didn't know how to tell."

[Clover · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
Deeply human.

I love this cover. I struggled with this one and I'm not sure why. It wasn't the time for me. These poems are not the usual fluff, these hit hard and the forms (sometimes literally) are evocative and clever. Life, death, family, disabilities, and being a woman are some of the topics touched on by Best.

My favourite was Pathology.

I completely recommend this collection! I'll happily be displaying this at work. I will be rereading this slowly to fully embrace the power and depth of each poem.

Check your local library! Request they purchase it and place a hold on it!

[Michelle Graf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and ECW Press for the ARC.

A beautiful and intimate collection of poetry and prose. Using the formating of a government form in your poetry about ableism in the services meant to help you is so damn clever.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great poems! Full review soon!
Thank you to ECW Press for my gifted review copy!

[Kristiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bad Weather Mammals by Ashley-Elizabeth Best is an atmospheric exploration of disability, abuse and death. Best's poetry is steeped in imagery and metaphor, while her use of form ranges from utilising the traditional, to clever manipulation of government forms to demonstrate how disability and trauma permeate the everyday.

While these topics have certainly been written about before and will no doubt be written about for years to come - Best's injection of personal experience ensures this collection is fresh. From start to finish, her poetic style and voice are strongly established and maintained; a strength defying the people and systems bent on stifling the speaker's voice.

And thus, while Best's narrative is not linear and nor does this collection tout to be a way of healing, there is hope in the sheer defiance and ferocity felt in these poems. Bad Weather Mammals conveys an admirable desire to live.

[Kay West · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply impactful, brutally honest poetry collection about the joys and trauma of living with a disability.

I highlighted SO much of this book. The prose are stunning, the imagery is compelling, the way Elizabeth-Best plays with form elevates her words beyond the page.

For me, reading poetry is a deeply intimate act that connects the reader to the author in really vulnerable ways. In Ashley-Elizabeth's case, she takes her specific lived experiences and then cracks it open to create a connection to others in this really compelling way.

I love the strong imagery,
'A congregation of whispers
An army of murmurations
A flock of routes
An unkindness of biochemicals'

I love how this collection plays with the freedom of form, in connection to applying for disability support from the government. She makes government forms into poetry that are even more impactful on this backdrop of clinical/unfeeling/faceless forms.

I highly recommend buying a physical copy of this book if you can, because the way the poems are structured make the physical reading of this book a poem in itself.

Thank you to ECW Press for a physical copy of this ARC.

This book is best read while trying to run up an ice-slicked hill, with bubble wrap around your heart.

[Emily | bookwhispererem · Rating 5 out of 5]

𝑩𝒂𝒅 𝑾𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑴𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒔 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞) 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧—𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭-𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐰.

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝒜𝓈𝒽𝓁𝑒𝓎-𝐸𝓁𝒾𝓏𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓉𝒽 𝐵𝑒𝓈𝓉, 𝐸𝒞𝒲 𝒫𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈, & 𝒩𝑒𝓉𝒢𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓎 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒜𝑅𝒞! 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝓅𝒾𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝑜𝓌𝓃.

[Tasmin Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and Beautifully written poems. I love poetry that's like this when it feels raw and emotional.

"My teeth lean to the curve of words I’m too afraid to say,"

I was given a copy from Netgally for an honest review.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed these poems! Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy!