Tom,
I'm intrigued, though I'm not entirely sure what your
describing. It sounds like you're talking about people who are ill
writing about their own experiences. I'm more interested in
biographical rather than autobiographical poetry, if partly because
autobiographical poetry has received so much attention over the
years. But are you also saying you know of biographical poetry about
people who become ill?
I'd be
interested to hear more of your experiences with poetry as therapy.
Can you make any generalizations about your patients' writing
compared with professional poets who have written about being ill
(The Man with Night Sweats comes to mind)?
Cheers,
David
David,
I've been intriguedby 'illness' poetry for
some time, but didn't realize until now that this is a typr of
biographical poetry. As someone who works on both ends of the
specturm, both as a poetry therapist with the 'ill' who write and as
a poet and critic with writers who become or are 'ill' it seems to me
that biographical poetry covers the same range. I'm wondering
where and how distinctions might be made.
tom
bell
--
________________
Dr David McCooey
Lecturer in Literary Studies
Honours Co-ordinator
School of Literary and Communication Studies
Deakin University
Geelong
Victoria
Australia 3217
ph: 61 3 5227 1331
fax: 61 3 5227 2484
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