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Poetry and illness

Thank you, friends and followers, for keeping me on your radar. I saw my doctor again today. I am unfit for work, require more investigations, and am currently switching to a new treatment regime. I am in great pain most of the time. What a beautiful October weekend it was: the end of the British summer, and the best weather of the year. I am deeply moved by love and friendship now - more even than art, it endures, and matters. I cannot imagine what I ever had to complain about - if I did. What I had, before this ill health came, was a great treasure. The treasure remains. A dear true love. One thinks of poets and illness - Keats the best known, and not just because of the new film, Bright Star, which I hear is superb. Dylan Thomas, too. Eliot's nerves. Plath. The list is long. I am not sure pain makes things better creatively, though Delmore Schwartz thought so. Be good to each other. Don't take poetry prizes too seriously - I suppose my two main messages. If I had a third, it would be: poetry can also be grandiloquent without need to apologise. Austerity, opacity, difficulty, strangeness, plainness, the ordinary, the demotic - it's all language. Poets try their best with it. Enjoy the light while it lasts.

Comments

Jeannette said…
Dear Todd, I am sorry to hear this news. I have been a lurker of your blog for some time now. I like your messages. Do take care.
Jeffrey Side said…
Get well soon Todd. Hang in there.
Anonymous said…
Through my connection with the poetry world for over 25 years I have met only a handful of poets who were not generous or encouraging and will be forever grateful to those who first got me started on this road (Bill Billings, who told me to write, and Craig Raine, who told me to read)

Rodney Wood
Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

You say that you are deeply moved by love and friendship which I can well understand. The question I would like to ask is whether you have found poetry to have been any consolation during your recent illness?

Best wishes from Simon
Brian Busby said…
Todd, all our best wishes go out to you. Here's to when we next meet over drinks (whether in Montreal or London). BJB
Mark Granier said…
I hope you recover from your illness soon Todd or (at the very least) manage the pain. Best wishes,

Mark
Zoe said…
I'm so sorry to hear this. Hope it improves soon.

Zoe
I hope you recover soon, I too have been a blog lurking and wish you a hasty recovery.

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