Expected Shipping Date: October 5, 2026
On Remembrance Day, 2022, the author ended up in the ER with what was eventually diagnosed as blood clots. This diagnosis resulted in a two-week hospital stay that overlooked Vancouver’s Davie Street Village and the nightlife landscapes of his youth. Blood Clot Banana Bag delves into perceptions of luck and fortune, but also grief and survivor’s guilt, and the privilege of universal health care, all through the lens of the author’s trademark humour and exacting details.
“Banana Bag” is the nickname medical workers give to IV bags, which are tinged yellow from electrolytes and hang above patients like banana bunches. Each bag costs $600. As a poet, he is intrigued by what’s left to confess, what needs to be said. How should one contribute in a world so prone to contamination?
Billeh Nickerson is an author, editor, and educator whose previous six books include McPoems, the City of Vancouver-Book-Award-Nominated Artificial Cherry, and Duct-Taped Roses. He is also the co-editor of the ground-breaking Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets. He is a former Associate Dean, and long-time faculty in the Creative Writing department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC.
