Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Art. I WISH I WASN'T ROYALTY is a poetic and artistic collaboration among four bipolar poets and a bipolar poet/illustrator resulting in a functional 54-card playing card deck. The design of the deck is based on the standard French-style deck.
A standard card deck (ex: the classic Bicycle Poker Deck) contains four suits: hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds. I WISH I WASN'T ROYALTY follows the same format. Each of the four poets is given a suit that their poem is written across. The cards are printed in color on both sides and feature custom artwork from Catherine Weiss. The backs of the cards will all be uniform, but the faces of the cards are individually designed with an illustration and one line from a featured poet's poem. Every face card features a portrait of the poet as a Jack, King, or Queen with text. Cards 2-10 feature a specific illustration with text. The Ace for each suit features the custom pip, the title of the poem, and the name of the poet. Each of the poets offers one poem about a bipolar extreme mood state--either depression or mania. Each poem is written so that one line is included in the design of the card, so that if you laid the suits out in order you could read the entire poem from beginning to end.
Living with bipolar disorder is often full of surprising juxtapositions. Mania can cause thoughts to make unexpected connections. Depression can bring confusion and a sense of distant unreality. Every line of every poem in I WISH I WASN'T ROYALTY is designed to be a stand-alone thought or image, read as part of its whole poem, or combined in unexpected ways with cards from other suits. Playing a game of cards with this deck creates opportunities for poetic fragments to offer up an ever-shifting found poem, which echoes the experience of living with extreme mood-states. Any game you can play with a standard 54-card deck, you will be able to play with I WISH I WASN'T ROYALTY.
