THE PAIN POETS are a quartet of disabled queers. They are based in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 territory (Regina, SK). You can find them touching knees on Dayne’s red cuddle couch under a blanket as they write, edit, stretch, and cry-laugh together.
COURTNEY BATES-HARDY is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (2013), and a chapbook, Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Vallum, PRISM, and Best Canadian Poetry, among others. She won the City of Regina Writing Award in 2025 for her manuscript-in-progress, We Want to Live Like Trees. You can find her on Instagram @courtneybateshardy.
DAYNE BLAIR (she/her) is a disabled lesbian writer, artist, and philosopher; you might remember her as “That Weird Girl from High School.” Her work has been featured in The Mid-Atlantic Review, and her poem “Lycanthropy” was awarded an Honourable Mention for the Luce Prize. When she’s not at work hacking the planet, she’s spending time with her bird-sons or watching horror movies with her loved ones. You can learn more about her at blairwitchpoetry.github.io.
TEA GERBEZA (she/they) is the author of How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press, 2025), winner of the 2026 SK-Arts Poetry Award Honouring Anne Szumigalski, and a finalist for the Writers’ Trust 2025 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for 2SLGBTQ+ Emerging Writers. She is a neuroqueer disabled writer and multimedia artist with a very loud laugh. Find out more on teagerbeza.com. You can also find them on Instagram @poetgerby.
CARLA HARRIS (they/she) is a disabled, mad, queer, nonbinary writer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist from Treaty 4 territory, living in Regina, Saskatchewan. They have had publications appear in League of Canadian Poets, the Humber Literary Review, and Write Magazine. They are working on their first collection of poetry and an interdisciplinary play in unconfined #CripTime. You can find them on Instagram at @enbygeorge.
