Hi! I’m Paige (they/them), an interdisciplinary poet-scholar. Other categorical boxes to aid legibility*: I’m a queer, neurodivergent being of settler descent and a doctor untrained in CPR. Currently, the aim of my work is to create space for curative touch** in concert with the creative vitality inherent in all beings (thanks to Gabrielle Civil, Hortense Spillers, and CAConrad for help with this language).

I’m a Charles Phelps Taft Fellow at the University of Cincinnati and recipient of [accolade], [accolade], [accolade]. You can find some of my work in Anomaly, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, The Kenyon Review, Poets.org, Poetry Northwest, Vinyl, West Branch, and the chapbook Tussle (dancing girl press).

*“If we examine the process of ‘understanding’ people and ideas from the perspective of Western thought, we discover that its basis is this requirement for transparency. In order to understand and thus accept you, I have to measure your solidity with the ideal scale providing me with grounds to make comparisons and, perhaps, judgements. I have to reduce . . .” — Édouard Glissant, “For Opacity”

**Hortense Spillers defines curative touch in contrast to violent touch; curative touch can heal, help sustain life, in response to violence. It takes far more curative touch to heal the damage wrought by a moment of violent touch.

I define touch across modalities: physical, psychic, emotional, and energetic forms of connection.

paigewbb[at]gmail.com [no socials]