Tea Gerbeza
Tea Gerbeza is a neuroqueer, disabled poet, writer, editor, and multimedia artist. She holds an MA in creative writing and English from the University of Regina, and an MFA in writing from the University of Saskatchewan. Gerbeza was a finalist for Palette Poetry’s Emerging Poet Prize in 2021, won the Ex-Puritan Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence and was longlisted for Room magazine’s Short Form’s contest in 2022, and was a People’s Choice Award finalist in Contemporary Verse 2’s 2-Day Poem Contest for “Body of the Day” in 2024. Gerbeza lives in Treaty 4 Territory (Regina).
Writers & Books
Award History
Jury Citation
“Weaving through the intersections of disability, generational trauma, migration, and queerness, Tea Gerbeza’s How I Bend Into More articulates a vision of reclaiming the changing self with extraordinary grace. Gerbeza not only reshapes paper, images, and language to offer us a bracingly honest account of living with scoliosis, but succeeds in bending our perception of the disabled body against a landscape of ableism and shame. With precision and care, each page of this long poem deftly builds on the next to transform words into art. What shines brightest about this debut is the way Gerbeza shows us the expansive possibilities of love and power found in family, community, and the self. This book is a profound work of art and heart.”—2025 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Jury (Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Darrin Hagen, and Janika Oza)Works Recognized by WT