I have a handful of poems about my parents (more accomplished than that five
minute blitz I posted the other day) but none, interestingly enough, about
my brother, that one was the worst case of all and I only have to think
about the matter to be almost inchoate with anger, but, more to the point,
many of my poems are based on very 'personal' matters, but transposed by the
imagination, very few are literally autobiographical, but as in dreams, real
events occur in them but with names and faces altered. That's not because of
any reluctance on my part to write of these matters, but simply the way
things surface. My usual practice is to write fairly quickly for the first
draft, but then to marinate the piece, let it drift in my mind, what was
unusual about that piece was its Jackson Pollock-like splattering of verbal
paint on the page, it didn't, as it were, come from the normal state of
transaction with language, but a more everyday, conscious but primitive
level of response. If I can make myself clear, usually whatever emotional
state a poem of mine might indicate, it is not necessarily an indication of
'how I feel' at that time, this was different in that it is a direct
unvarnished index of anger.
I know too many stories about the horrors that happen in the medical
profession, what I was struggling to express was a horror at how 'systems'
in general inflict such casualties in life.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erminia Passannanti" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: Depression (an Ode)
> Dear David,
>
> I am very interested and moved by your account: I think it is honourable
> that a son would feel hurt by the NHS medical maltreatment. or
mistreatment
> of his parents. I think one - if in possession of the language powers -
> dedicate some poems to write a tribute to those who gave us birth and
> looked after us as children and young people. I have myself an authentic
> adoration for my parental figures who died too early in my life and whose
> love, care, security, protection, education, example, sacrifice, fantasy
> miss and who I thank life that I was given the opportunity to meet and
> enjoy.
>
> I do understand your rage. My husband works as a accident and emergency
> surgeon in Oxford. I hear sad story every single night when he comes back.
> Life is sad. Il destino umano e' di dolore e miseria.
> Ermi
>
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