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 magic 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 after her operations, recovering.
There is a dreamlike quality to these pieces, rivaled by depictions of pain, of amputation, of hysterectomy, of disability, and the realization of catastrophic change.
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.
I always feel strange putting a star-rating on writing that feel so deeply raw and personal as this one. Therefore I'm not going to rate this book, but I do want to share some of my thoughts whilst reading it.
Phantompains is an explorations through words of the often crude and unfiltered emotions, trauma and pain that come with a newly aquired disablility/disfigurement. Coming from the perspective of a disabled person herself, but also a young MD who's seen this condition in patient in her care during rotations, this was a deeply relatable, but also very difficult readingexperience.
It is an emotionally challenging collection, that comes with many a trigger warning, including internalized ableism, disgust/defamiliarisation with the body and a lot of anger. All those emotions are deeply valid and relatable, but it's because of them that I hestitate to recommend this book to just anyone with a disability. If you yourself are in the earlier stages of grief over the loss of health, I can see this text being a bit too much. If you feel you're in a bit more of a stable headspace, and are able to take a step back from these pages, it's well worth your time.
This book has given me a new appreciation for poetry. Although I will never be able to fully comprehend what it was like for the author to go through such a life changing event, this collection of poetry has provided me with insight into how the author deeply feels in nealry every moment of their journey. The way she is able to convey pain and longing in varying poetic conventions leaves me in awe of her ability to not only share her deepest emotions but also leave readers with something to fathom long after. Even if only for a moment, I was ther with her trying to empathisize the phenomenam of phantompains which only a skilled writer can bring onto paper. For that reason, this book is on another level and in another dimension in a spiritual realm. What is created is a remarkable work that provides such beautiful, sorrowfilled, powerful renditions of life, love, death, endurance and all that is in between.
Phantompains is a stunning collection of poetry and I'm so grateful I stumbled across it. Therese Estacion writes autobiographical poems about her experience developing a severe systemic infection resulting in the removal of both legs, several fingers, and her reproductive organs. The poetry sections that deal most heavily with these actual events (the ICU poems and the Eunuched Female poems) were probably my favourites, as these most personal poems really connect you to her experiences. My own experiences with disability are dramatically different from hers (mine are primarily caused by chronic illness), but these medicalised experiences were easy for me to connect with, and reading of her experiences that differed from mine was something I took to heart as well. I also really loved the poems based on Filipino folk stories, which tied her own experiences with life and disability to the folklore she has been exposed to her whole life, which is something that has been on my mind lately (disability and folklore). I listened to the audiobook read by the author, which I thought was excellent.
Overall I loved this collection and I hope to get to read more from the poet in the future.
I said yes, to have dinner with someone I had never met before. A travelling writer who was looking for the company of fellow writers. This was the first time I met Terese. We both said yes to dine with a stranger. For me, this would have been out of my comfort zone, but this time it felt right. Terese has a gift... in fact she has many gifts. She has a way of connecting people, making them feel comfortable and challenging them with support and kindness. After, almost literally, just putting down Phantompains, yet to process, but brain full of stunning imagery, this is the lingering feeling I have. I feel connected, I feel challenged and I feel like I was taken on her journey protected by her beautiful soul. The places you travel in Phantompains are dark, but because Therese lived this story before she told it, because she is holding you on each page, because her spirit is bright, you travel with her willingly. It is not an easy journey, but the reader will reach the end rewarded. Whether you meet Therese in person or on page your only regret will be not having met her sooner.
A moving, highly relatable #ownvoices poetry collection about a Filipino Canadian woman who loses some of her fingers and her lower legs due to a debilitating disease. Great on audio and highly recommended for anyone looking to better understand the life of someone who has had a hysterectomy or lost part of a limb. Highly recommended!
Disclaimer: The author is a friend and a lovely person in general , and while I don't think that biases me significantly - especially for poetry, see below! - I think it is only fair to disclose.
I don't feel super qualified to review poetry - I read it sporadically and I enjoy it, but even when I studied English literature poetry always seemed bigger than my skills to dissect and analyse. This gets five stars from me because I feel it is complex, raw, and true, explores feelings honestly and without holding back, uses the folklore comparisons well, and that it is the best version of this book it can be.
P.S. I've heard the author read some of this work aloud, and I would say if you have that opportunity in person or via YouTube videos for any poet, I highly recommend doing so. It takes everything to another level, and Therese's cadence is no exception.
Phantom pain occurs after a person has received an amputation but their nerves fail to recognize that the extremities have been removed. Therese Estacion was diagnosed with a bladder infection, but she was much more sick than that. Therese had a deadly infection that resulted in dead so much dead tissue that doctors had to amputate both her legs (below the knees), some fingers, and do a hysterectomy. This book of poetry is a cohesive collection the includes poems from her experience (though not in order) from when she was told she had a UTI but got worse and was airlifted to hospital to when she was in rehab after her amputations. She also has poems contextualizing her experience using characters from Filipino folk tales and using the feminist conception of the female eunuch. Therese Estacion's "Phantompain" is an exceptional collection of poetry and an important contribution to understanding the patient experience of amputation and phantom pain.
A collection everyone should have on their bookshelf!
Estacion's Phantompains answers questions before we even ask them - if we have the courage to ask them or know how to in a sensitive and informed way. Her work instills too many human emotions to name.
Weaving Filipino folklore and Visayan language with thoughtful reflections of childhood and unbridled humour Estacion positions readers to understand more about who she is before sharing her experiences of trauma, her story of identity and her journey of vulnerability.
Phantompains by Therese Estacion was a thrilling collection of poetry to read.
The reader is thrown into the surreal physical experience alongside the poet, contemplating such nightmarish moments as:
Waste body garbaged while I was anaethetically asleep naked under medical fluoresence --intubated -- dead bits cut off -- dead bits deemed "biohazard": waste
The reader feels this viceral description, but not because the poet is crying out for pity. Rather, the reader straps in alongside the poet for a wild ride through intensely physical moments offset by surreal interludes populated by the monsters of Filipino folklore, echoing with murmurs of the Visayan language, drawing back the curtain on erotic reclamations, and bursting with raw humour.
Estacion's poetry draws back the curtain of the operating room, and later the bedroom. While a medical patient, the poet resists passivity. Yes, she is operated upon and her life is saved by miracles of science and actions of medical professionals, but there is agency in the poet's sharp vision. There is strength in the vulnerability of figuring out how to continue the sexual self between the "eunuched female" and Lover. There are moments of self-depreciating humour, admitting as she does in EF V that "It has been two years and Eunuched female can now do two very important things: / - wipe her own ass / - drive" (84). Such actions are suddenly no longer mundane or private, reminders of what has been hardwon and not to be taken for granted.
The poetry in this collection is cathartic, but not self-indulgent. The poet describes moments of her own rehabilitation, but the reader too becomes strengthened by the experience. This is a sophisticated and rare new voice on the landscape of Canadian poetry.
Raw collection of poetry describing the author's experiences with her disability. The second poem describing her body parts getting tossed in the trash was hard-hitting.
The Abat/Monsters section was my favorite. So were "The ABG (Able-Bodied Gaze)," which showed the unspoken ableism nondisabled folks carry, and "Report on Phantompains."
My big critique was in the last section, Eunuched Female. As a result of her disability, the author does not feel desirable anymore. As she had stated, "she has been infantilized by/_everyone who sees her," a common problem disabled adults face. However, she then goes on to talk about using a "wheelchair that has only 2 speeds: worm or slug/both asexual beings like her." The term she should have used for herself was "desexualized," since asexual is a valid sexual orientation. This reminds me of Angela Chen's Ace, when she brings up how ace people and disabled people pit themselves against each other to prove they don't have the other's perceived flaws. Ace people can be ableist, while disabled people can be aphobic, and that's just sad, especially when asexual disabled people exist.
Unfortunately, the throwaway aphobic verse dampened an otherwise eye-opening book.
This collection was just so unbelievably haunting, I could not put it down. I read this in one sitting late one night and was just so enthralled by the lyrical and gripping imagination of each and every poem.
Therese explores her disability and grief while weaving in Filipinx folklore to capture the depth and breadth of her pain and anguish. The book is dark, there’s no doubt about it. It is, after all, a testament to the experience of the rare infection that nearly killed her, that took both her legs below the knees, several fingers, and reproductive organs. But there is also something so cathartic in all of it.
It warrants a re-read, that’s for sure! There’s still so much for me to process about this gem.
I just finished this book and I can't stop crying. Therese's voice is so clear. Having heard her read some of these poems, I feel like my eyes are her voice.
Part of my brain is telling me "You can't relate to her. You've never gone through something like this." And yet, I do. Striving to tell Filipino stories to people who don't speak Visayan. Not speaking our languages well enough ourselves. Striving to have genitals that work for yourself and to get L to stay.
I don't know how, but I too become focused on how to get L to stay.
Guilt-ridden love. Heart broken love. Body broken love.
Body in flux.
I appreciate the focus on culture, the focus on body.
Phantompains is a poetry anthology that functions as a memoir on the author's experiences of gradually losing her limbs to severe infection. Her affliction is something I haven't thought about enough at the time, and I definitely should have. I read this book in November 2023 when the genocide was unfolding in Gaza. I honestly just picked this book up because of the cover, but it felt like the universe was aligning to give me more context on amputation and amputees, which turned out very insightful and timely.
I think quite often about losing one's familiar self to inevitable changes. I consider it metaphysical growth pain - a friend perceives this with continuous grief. Witnessing our inner self changing is a bit like following many cycles of death and rebirth, I guess. Even something so abstract can overwhelm us with such profound loss. Now, what if you actually have to part with pieces of your physical body? I don't think this thought occurs often to most people till it becomes a reality that we have to face ourselves, at least not to me and not very much before I witness the horrific mass mutilation by Israel. In Phantompains, Estacion walks us through the feeling of losing her body parts. I commend that she uses different styles and methods to represent different stages of the amputation. I like how this makes our distance from her experience vary, and we readers get to have a dynamic journey into the full immersion.
We start the book with her coping which incorporates lots of the Philippines' folklore. The folklore she's investigating mostly revolves around body horror. It strikes me how important stories are to contextualise our pain and confusion as we're treading through this muddy water of the world. Although the stories are possibly born out of the fear of having an accident bad enough to risk the loss of body parts (which in itself could be a bit ableist, I think), I really appreciate how the creatures can seemingly be friends that bring comfort for the author in her new and unfamiliar reality.
"Perhaps I was always meant to be the child who had to pay debt to all their libidinal bestiality and female infanticide An offering of my soles for their souls"
I was amused by the punny rhyme, but it stung because I can feel her desperation to make sense of her grief. These reflections are a prelude to the visceral, honest and raw account of how the infection happened. The second half is more descriptive, featuring the sudden onset of her collapse, the rough hospital days, and the unexpected aftereffects. I appreciate her sharing these very intimate moments while raising awareness of disability's affective aspects that doesn't usually take the front in the other narrative media. From a critical aspect, I think her writing is great. Her poetry is potent in expressing loss, and I really feel for her sorrow. As the author revisits her grief over and over, I never thought that her writing was repetitive. I appreciate her creativity and enjoy the occasional ironic humor.
I'm pretty stingy with my rating for poetry books because poetry is kind of narrowly catered to readers sharing similar tastes with the author. It's just harder for poetry to be universally and undeniably good for everyone, I think. That being said, I send this book and the author my highest regard. I have only rated 5 poetry books with 5 stars ever, and this is one of them. Highly recommended!
Estacion utilizes Visayan mythology to understand the loss of her body, combining whimsy and blunt realism to tell the emotions of amputation and disability.
I kept on wanting to use the word delightful when describing her work because this collection filled me such small quiet joy. Not at her pain or the horrifics at the situation but disability is so little described, especially by the disabled. The loss I experienced at twenty is a lot different than what she did at thirty-three. I've spent a lot less time in hospitals but the tenderness she writes with as she looks at her new reality, talking about picking up vampire babies and being jealous of aswangs for being able to place their bodies back together. As she calls herself the Eunichized Female to describe her quest to figure out her sexuality and her relationship with her lover now that she can't have children. She writes with blunt honesty but with such poignancy and I hope that continues to publish.
In the beginning poems she uses both English and Visayan to weave her history and I was really drawn to those images. My summary of one of the section is "now that I'm barren myself I might go walking in the field at night looking for a vampire baby to hold." It has such longing and lore and I love it. But the second half with it's words smelling of antiseptic and syringes were just as compelling.
I really 22 this to everyone, it is a beautiful and important book that represents adjusting to a disability so well.
Therese Estacion spent her childhood in Guihulngan and Cebu (in what colonizers call the Philippines) before moving to Canada with her family at age ten. At thirty three, she was hospitalized because of a bacteria and had a hysterectomy and several amputations. She identifies as someone with a disability.
Reread in January of 2023, after being read the first time in May 2022. It is still just as beautiful and poignant.
Incredible. Stunning. Vivid. I highly recommend this book. I read it in an evening out loud with my partner, and it was intense and rewarding. I've also listened to some of the audiobook, and the author's voice is fantastic and it was an even more powerful experience. I'm so grateful I had the chance to hear her work. I may end up buying my own hard copy so I can read it over and over again.