Damien Becker lives and writes on Bundjalung Country in Murwillumbah, NSW. His writing draws on a lifetime of navigating chronic illness as someone with cystic fibrosis and also as a double-lung transplant recipient.
An award-winning spoken word artist who has performed nationally and internationally over the past decade, his poems have featured in Best of Australian Poems, Australian Poetry Journal, Suburban Review, Northerly, and Regional Review, among others.
Damien won the 2024 Flying Islands Prize for his manuscript that became this debut poetry collection, Thin Reed Throat.
Excerpt from Best Not (To Be Sick)
Overall, I’ve found when you’ve got CF,
it’s best not to laugh. People will stare,
whack you on the back, say
Don’t cough up a lung, mate.
So I tell this child about benign pity
as the quietest form of violence, whisper
Don’t cough up a lung, mate.
So I tell this child about benign pity
as the quietest form of violence, whisper
Learn to laugh with your eyes, my love.
