|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH is well known as the author of the Alfoxden and
Grasmere Journals (1798-1803) and as the sister of the poet William
Wordsworth. She is widely praised for her nature writing and is
often remembered as a woman of great physical vitality. Less well
known, however, is that Dorothy became seriously ill in 1829 and
was mostly housebound for the last twenty years of her life. Her
personal letters and unpublished journals from this time paint a
portrait of a compassionate and creative woman who made her
sickroom into a garden for herself and her pet robin and who
finally grew to call herself a poet. They also reveal how vital
Dorothy was to her brother's success, and the closeness they shared
as siblings. By re-examining her life through the perspective of
her illness, this biography allows Dorothy Wordsworth to step out
from her brother's shadow and back into her own life story.
'Long before I knew I was sick, I knew I was breakable . . .' After
years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's perception of
her body was rendered fluid and disjointed. When she was finally
diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to
piece together what had been happening to her - all the
misdiagnoses, the fractures, the dislocations, the bone-crushing
exhaustion, the not being believed. Some of Us Just Fall combines
memoir, pathography and nature writing to trace a fascinating
journey through illness, a journey which led Polly to her current
home in the Lake District, where outdoor swimming is purported to
cure all, and where every day Polly uses the natural world to help
tame her illness. Polly delves into the history of her two genetic
conditions, uncovering how these illnesses were managed (or not) in
times gone by and exploring how best to plan for her own future.
From medical misogyny and gaslighting, to the illusion of 'the
nature cure', this essential, beautiful and deeply personal book
examines how we deal with bodies that diverge from the norm, and
why this urgently needs to change. This is not a book about getting
better, this is a book about living better with illness.
|
I Have Found a Song (Hardcover)
Patience Agbabi, Polly Atkin, Valerie Bloom; Illustrated by Sonia Boyce, Hew Locke, …
|
R766
Discovery Miles 7 660
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
"I Have Found a Song" is a fascinating collection of poems and
images published to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade Act. It originated in a commission from Arts Council
England for 12 poets to write on the theme of enslavement, which
has resulted in a richly diverse selection of new poems.
Interspersed with these are elaborate and exciting visual
contributions by five artists invited by "Enitharmon Editions" to
produce work on the same theme. The de luxe edition of the book is
accompanied by a portfolio of signed original prints, and each
artist has also contributed additional sequences of images
reflecting on enslavement in its many forms. The poets include
Patience Agbabi, Polly Atkin, Valerie Bloom, Jean 'Binta' Breeze,
Fred D'Aguiar, Helen Dunmore, Bernardine Evaristo, Paul Farley,
Jacob Sam-La Rose, Iain Sinclair, Hugo Williams, and Benjamin
Zephaniah. The artists include Sonia Boyce, Hew Locke, Shanti
Panchal, Chris Steele-Perkins, and Paula Rego.
These atmospheric and keenly observational poems offer us a slant
perspective on everyday things and events: the ugliness of an
elderly mute swan; or a group of migraine sufferers forming a
fellowship and holding regular meetings. Poems addressing the
complexity of contemporary relationships sit alongside those
riffing on traditional themes, even - in the case of 'Hermes
Enodios' and 'Potnia Theron' - revisiting classical gods. These are
poems embedded in particular landscapes, in which the real becomes
surreal and vice versa. Together they form a poetry which is deeply
involved with the natural world - concerned with deer in fields and
jays in woods - but which is not in any way removed, encompassing
email, photo-shop, and fighter jets.
|
You may like...
The New Room
Anne Giulieri, Samantha Chaffey
Paperback
R123
Discovery Miles 1 230
|