A poem of mine, ‘Hands’, has just gone up on Folia Magazine online – you can read it here.
The poem came out of a workshop a couple of years ago in Leeds, with writer and facilitator Rommi Smith. The starting point was smells – for me, the Vaseline Intensive Care in the first stanza (with the second part leading on from that).
Folia’s aim is to “foster a deeper appreciation for the poetry of life, death, and medicine” – which was why I submitted this piece. It’s a poem which moves around in time, with a childhood memory of driving in the car with my Mum (and her hand cream), juxtaposed with a later conversation about her going through chemotherapy.
I hope my Mum doesn’t mind this being ‘out there’; in some ways it’s not my experience to write about (though the conversation was, I guess). She dealt with the process of treatment with incredible humour and courage – so I hope the poem evokes this powerful being, who can (and does) deal with whatever life throws at her.
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