books
No One Knows Us There
Book*hug Press, forthcoming Spring 2025
From wherever I am, I will
send word like a golden thread,
rolling an unravelling ball through time
towards myself.
In this stunning debut collection, Bronwen Wallace Award finalist Jessica Bebenek presents two distinct and moving portraits of early womanhood. The first is that of the devoted, caregiving granddaughter navigating hospital hallways and the painful realities of palliative care. The second is that of a woman a decade older, compassionately looking back on her younger self, honouring unimaginable loss and turning it into genuine healing.
At once sensual, visceral, and dreamlike, No One Knows Us There takes us from the sterility of the hospital into the sumptuous natural world. We face horror in a manicured garden and discover beauty in a suncapped lake. A theoretical mathematician leads us to an elk encounter, the crooked bodies of birds are found in the spring thaw, and we become our own pet snail in a mason jar.
Ultimately, grief is radically transformed through plainspoken yet lyrical language, and this keen examination of trauma evolves into a striking celebration of the inevitability of change.
chapbooks & zines
I REMEMBER THE EXORCISM
“This book is Joe Brainard’s classic “I Remember” from the perspective of a woman looking back on a formative but toxic relationship. It’s an exorcism of the lasting possessions of old loves, of insecurities and anxieties, of body politics and indie rock. It’s a reminder that sometimes we see what has to be done for a long time before we’re able—in all the ways we need to get able—to do it. It’s Manic Panic and Weezer and thigh-high socks, but with an ethos that’s so contemporary. Every reader should be prepared for moments of identification, but if you’re a Toronto hipster woman in your 30s with at least one douche ex in your emotional baggage, get ready to be seen, and sorry/not sorry ‘bout it.”
first edition of 50; sold out
WHAT IS PUNK
self-published, 2019
This six-page risograph zine is a snapshot, a reflection on what the f*ck it even means to be punk right now. Opens up into an 11x17" poster of Iggy Pop with the full text overlaid.
first edition of 250; sold out
second edition forthcoming
k2tog
Broken Dimanche Press, 2018
k2tog is an interactive art book of knitting patterns for poems, published by Berlin's Broken Dimanche Press. This collection contains an introductory essay and 9 knitting patterns for poems by women in which the authors speak to each other through text & time. The knitted pieces, whether created by Bebenek or the reader using the attached knitting needles and twine, are the next poem in these continuing conversations. Find out more about the project and process.
Canadian edition of 100; in print
Fourth Walk
In her third full-length chapbook, Jessica Bebenek explores grief, mourning, and what we are left with: ourselves. These poems unflinchingly trace the end of a romantic relationship and the death of her grandfather, attempting "to give this heartbreak breath / a name.” With grit, honesty and humour, she charts her attempts to explain this year to herself, to admit “This was not a slow slip. There was pain.”
third edition in print
KETTLE SONG
Grow & Grow Press, 2014
A collection of new poems exploring intimacy and perspective, new love and the loss of it.
two editions; sold out
THE NOVELLA PROJECT
Jessica Bebenek & Mark Jordan Manner
Grow & Grow Press, 2013
A collaborative project fusing fact & fiction, prose and poetry, fantasy and reality. Includes a short story by 'Kaz Adam Mason' on the infamous poet 'Novella Ebony Danger', as well as a collection of her poems tucked inside a back pocket of the larger chapbook.
first edition; sold out
return to projects page
I, FAMILY
Loose Ends Press, 2012
Debut collection of poems centring around family and relationships.
two editions; sold out