By Leanne Dunic. Talonbooks, 2024.
In Wet, a transient Chinese American model working in Singapore thirsts for the unattainable: fair labour rights, the extinguishing of nearby forest fires, breathable air, healthy habitats for animals, human connection. She navigates place and placelessness while observing other migrant workers toiling outdoors despite the hazardous conditions. Through photographs and language shot through with empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe.
Leanne Dunic (she/her) is a biracial, bisexual woman who has spent her life navigating liminal spaces, inspiring her to produce trans-media projects such as To Love the Coming End (Book*hug/Chin Music Press 2017) and The Gift (Book*hug 2019). Her most recent book is a lyric memoir with music entitled One and Half of You (Talonbooks 2021). She is the fiction editor at Tahoma Literary Review, a mentor at SFU’s The Writer’s Studio, and the leader of the band The Deep Cove. Leanne lives on the unceded and occupied Traditional Territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.
PRAISE FOR WET
‘Elegantly disconcerting, these poems travel with their speaker as she navigates the friction between female desire and commodification, human eroticism and elemental forces. The poems stumble upon creatures who are out of sorts within human environments – poisoned, entangled in plastic, desiccated, entirely unwelcome, except in fairy tales or dreams.”
—Stacy Alaimo, author of Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times and former co-president of ASLE
“With succulent imagery and a fast-paced narrative, Dunic provocatively captures the people, animals, and urban landscapes of Singapore. These pages are filled with profound reflections on labour and desire, travel and home.”
—Craig Santos Perez:, author of Habitat Threshold
