BOOKS
THIS IS GOING TO HURT
Life in Boulder County is no exception. Reports of domestic abuse and emergency room visits In ‘Violence Beside,’ poet Jade Lascelles for sexual assault have seeks bright things in the dark increased since 2019, according to the District Attorney’s office and BY EMMA ATHENA MESA (Moving to End Sexual Assault, a coun“Because the violent ty-wide sexual violence ocal poet Jade Lascelles doesn’t contains the violet,” resource center with shrink from what she describes she writes in “The offices in Lafayette), as as “the collapsed moment, the has use of MESA’s 24-7 moment of a brutality.” She approaches Morning of The Funeral.” Lascelles help hotline (303-443it, tries to make sense of it — tentativearranges her anger 7300). The recent ly, of course, as a dancer might in lisalongside empathy, series of high-profile tening to a foreign piece of music. sexual-assault cases But Lascelles is no masochist, only a pairs confusion with confidence, stillness involving CU Boulder realist and an artist. As she estabwith movement, yearnand BVSD student athlished in her first collection of prose ing with guidance — letes underscores how poems, The Inevitable, violence is deeply rooted and perwoven into our social fabric: It’s impos- holding together paradoxes with a sense of vasive violence is sible to escape, no matter how hard calm. The author has against women. And we try. accepted the presence Boulder County is far In her newly released collection, of violence in the from alone: The Violence Beside, Lascelles looks world, yet is not broAmerican Journal of deeper into life under such grim condiken by it. Emergency Medicine tions, and her poems are sharper for reports domestic vioit. They reflect back an array of lence cases around the terrors, but also a wealth of guidworld have increased ance and goodness we must wit“to unprecedented levness “despite how loud the vioels” in the last three lences may rasp.” Boulder writer, musician and artist Jade Lascelles years. “In a way, I think all of my work is celebrates her new poetry collection ‘Violence Beside’ at Lascelles’ new poems a recursive attempt at making East Window on Oct. 27. Photo by Jonas Leuenberger. claim space beside what sense of how to sit beside contrawe must, at least for now, accept as diction and ugliness,” she says Inevitable. After a series of murinevitable. “We are trying to tell you from her home in Boulder. “I’m not ders and a spate of violence that we can never be fully erased,” she trying to further add violence into against women in Lascelles’ life concludes in “This Is Why We Are the experience of my readers. and in the news, the fear of Afraid.” “The original blue colors we Writing these poems, for me, was becoming the next headline see running beneath our pale skin can trying to create this softer, safer about a missing woman rose to be restored well after they turned red, container for myself to come into a new pitch. She did not want then rusted, then washed away.” contact with these really hard hers to be the next drop of blood Violence may be impossible to conthings.” glowing blue beneath a UV light tain, but through art and poetry “it can Lascelles, an MFA graduate of “with confirmation of what once be sectioned off into these bite-sized Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac spilled out,” as she writes in chunks to make it more accessible,” School of Disembodied Poetics, “This Is Why We Are Afraid.” Lascelles says. It’s one way to move has gathered her most personal So Lascelles turned to her toward healing. poems yet in Violence Beside. craft to help process her fear. ‘Violence Beside,’ the latest poetry collection by local Jade Much of her work defies easy cateWriting poetry “was a coping Lascelles, was released Oct. 1 via Essay Press. gorization. Like The Inevitable, mechanism for myself, trying to many poems in Violence Beside write through what I was experiON THE PAGE: Violence can stand alone; others build upon one encing,” she says. “I was at a point Beside book launch with ‘WE CAN NEVER BE another as the book progresses; some where I was trying to figure out how to Jade Lascelles. 7-9 p.m. FULLY ERASED’ read more like creative prose. The colexist in such a violent world without it Friday, Oct. 27, East Window, The three-dozen or so pieces in lection emphasizes Lascelles’ personal totally destroying me, because there’s 4550 Broadway, C-3B2, Violence Beside were born from the commitment to seeking bright things no not really a choice of existing in a nonBoulder. Free same creative flush that delivered matter the dark. violent world right now.” Lascelles the contents of The
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OCTOBER 19, 2023
BOULDER WEEKLY
