Description
Book SynopsisAnthony Wilson’s poems explore the borderline territory between grief and laughter, memory and forgetting, illness and health. His central subject is the way we live within family and community, questioning the roles we construct, both alone and with others. The Afterlife explores central themes: mortality, mental health, the relation between body and soul, and how to live fully in the present moment.
Table of ContentsContents Part One 1 Teaching Writing Theory 3 What I Should be Feeling 4 Slow Weather 5 On Losing the Ability to Sleep 7 To Spring 8 In Oregon 9 British Teeth 10 Mornings in Paradise 11 Balinese Surfers 12 Thinking Outside 13 Poem Beginning With a Line by John Ash 14 The Barchester Chronicles 15 Staffroom, Summer, 2015 16 From a Chalkface 18 Utterance Dusk 19 Three Pieces (Poem Beginning With a Line by Yehuda Amichai) 20 Part Two 23 The Afterlife 25 The All-Clear 26 The True Story of the Night they Told me I was Cured 28 There are Days 29 Death Shelf 30 The Last Time I Saw Mary 31 Chicken and Almond Soup 32 Sitting With Your Body 33 Part Three 35 To a Notebook 37 Part Four 53 Bookmark 55 Signals 56 The Escape 57 After Coucou 58 Wildlife 59 Dream Opera 60 Part Five 61 The Names of My Mother 63 Trying Not to Think of Seamus Heaney 64 Bécotte’s Poem 65 Vinaigrette Variations 66 Insomnia 68 Dear Coffee 69 Driving to England 70 Lament 71 The Four of Us 72 Part Six 75 The Editing Suite 77 Due 78 Smoke 80 My Shyness 81 For My Children 82 The Future 83 Youth 84 Boy, Pirouetting 86 S 87 To a Charlie Irvine Guitar Solo 88 Poem 89 Poem Beginning With a Line by Eve Merriam 90 Everything I Know of What I Want to Say 91 Poem of Leaves 92 Notes 93 Acknowledgements 95
