Originally posted by Joshua Robertson:
Today, I have the pleasure of introducing a long time friend, gamer, poet, and musician, Anais Chartschenko. Anais has an exceptional voice and frequently impresses me with her ability to express it in a variety of art forms. Please take a moment to check out her works below, including excerpts.
Anaïs Chartschenko hails from the Canadian wilderness. She has come to enjoy such modern things as electric tea kettles. Her published works include two collections of poetry, Bright Needles and The Whisper Collector as well as a novel in verse, The Weightless One.CHECK OUT HER BOOKS
Buy The Weightless One
My review:
If you can expect anything from Chartschenko’s poetry, it would be her works have a realistic grit that will leave you breathless after the last page is turned. This is a book that should be given to any parent, clinician, or individual who has been touched by residential treatment. I promise you will continue to flip through this treasure for a long time.
Buy The Whisper Collector
My review:
The Whisper Collector is RAW; and you WILL find yourself tremoring at the end of many of these completed masterpieces. Years have come and gone since I have read poetry capable of clearly painting a picture of the path of humanness, giving color to the pain and suffering accompanying us on this lonely, troubled road. Chartschenko’s words cut deep, giving breath of the very horrors many have witnessed, but have not had the strength to speak themselves. The prose within this collection have touched many of my own memories, curiousities, and base fears restricted to the long, dark hours during sleepless nights! I have listened to countless freestyle, raw readings of poetry on stages across the United States, and any poem within this collection would be a sound addition on that stage.
Buy Bright Needles
Review from J.D. Estrada
I recently read a poetry collection by a Nobel laureate. It was nice, but you could see the thought going into it. Even when some lines spoke of something personal, there was restraint and you could see the writer tip toeing around emotions.
There is no tiptoeing here.
Anaïs Chartschenko walks the fiery path of her emotions and delivers one of the most intensely honest collections I’ve ever read.
This is raw poetry. Beautifully and intensely raw at that. You wonder how much of what is captured here is inspiration and how much of the source material is from real life. I found myself again and again reading and being floor by how deep these lines carve. I’ve recently begun to read more poetry and have for some time always had a poetry collection running while I read other works and I can honestly say this is as candid as Bukowski, but no vulgarity, just pure raw emotion.
I picked this collection up not really sure what to expect and what I found is yet another indie author that has impressed me and leaves me intensely curious as to what is next. If you want to read something that is as deep and personal as a page can hold, this is a wonderful example of just that.
CHECK OUT HER MUSIC
Buy Howling at the Moon: Live from my Living Room
Buy Immigration
And lastly, enjoy these excerpts from The Weightless One:
Reasons I Have To Stay
I was signed in,
I have no choice.
They tell me
My heart is failing.
They tell me
When you starve
Long enough, your body
Starts to eat your muscles.
Your heart is a muscle. It becomes
Your unwilling dinner.
They show me charts with
Low iron, low this and low that.
They tell me I need to take this
Serious.
But it doesn’t seem real.
All that is real is my sudden
Total lack of control, total
Forced surrender, it feels
So broken it can never be
Fixed-
I can’t agree to any of these
Things. Not even when I
Feel my heart forget a beat.
Not even when I’m hooked
To machines.
Reasons I Should Get To Leave
I don’t count calories.
I don’t weigh myself.
I don’t obsess over models.
I don’t exercise.
I don’t take laxatives or
Diuretics.
I don’t make myself
Throw up.
I don’t care what you think.
I think for myself.
I’m not this, I still have
My period.
Okay?
Little Fish
We lay in a tight row
Like sardines,
Wrapped tight in
Blankets and thick
Fuzzy pajamas
Getting our blood
Pressure checked
Lay down, and close
My eyes to the other
Girls’ gossip, they
Try to include me,
But I have nothing
To say in the morning
This is a strange torment,
Laying so close to the others
Trapped between laughter
And the talk of having to
Drink ensures or not,
Of having to go to an
Increased nutrition plan,
Of family therapy sessions
Coming at the end of the
Week.
Doll
Kara began
Pulling out
Her hair
Extensions
Bundles of
Blonde lay
On the floor,
Her lion mane
Alopecia found
“I’m sick of
The lies!” She
Twisted her
Face up her
Hands knotted
In hair
“Where did this
Come from?
I didn’t grow it!”
We watched
In horror
We watched
Unable to
Look away
From her
Transformation
Underneath she
Was so small
Like a fragile glass
Doll,
Her features too
Large for her head
Her hair was only
A few inches long
Thin dirty dishwater
Blonde strands like
Weeds dried out
In the sun
She smiled
She laughed
She burrowed
Her face in
Borrowed hair
And
Cried.
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