Bird
Birds don't fly with leads...Safety belts are to learn with, not to live with - I'm safer on the trapeze than crossing the road. And I do that every day, often by myself.
Thirteen-year-old Avis confronts the limitations imposed on her at school. She has epilepsy and some of the teachers want to stop her participating in the sport she loves most. Susan Hawthorne captures the voice and longings of a child at the edge of self-realisation. This collection draws on the experience of epilepsy mixed with imagination, mythic consciousness and an intense realisation of life.
The language in my tongue dissolves all history. It dissolves all expectation of the future. The language in my tongue is a big red balloon.
1999 | ISBN 9781875559886 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 100 pages
Reviews
The poems in Bird reflect and refract the experience of epilepsy through a variety of lenses, including classical metaphor, clinical exegesis, personal anecdote, and lesbian intimacy.
–Carolyn Gage, Lambda Literary
... the inexpressible, yet full, full space reminiscent of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Hawthorne's poetry words the flesh, boldly fleshes the words, to speak the tongue of a hitherto unspoken epilepsy.
–Anne Surma, SPAN, Journal of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies
Many-eyed and many-lived is this poet, as seismologist or lover, bird or newborn child. To the classic figures of Sappho and Eurydice she brings all the Now! Here! sense of discovery that fires her modern girl taking lessons in flight. Judith Rodriguez
‘I ... have been glad to read this collection of astutely chosen and varied poems to increase my imagining.’
–Donna McSkimming, Lesbiana
‘Over several years, Susan Hawthorne’s writings have helped to meet an evident need for the public to become better informed about an illness which has given rise over the centuries to excessive fear, prejudice and even superstition. That she has responded to this need through writings that are literary and poetic in character is both surprising and admirable. One expects poetry to educate but not quite in this way. Yet this gifted poet’s work does this for the uninitiated more effectively than any medical tract.’
–Michael Costigan, Chronic Disorder
‘Hawthorne is never out of control of her chosen forms and language which traces out delightful arabesques and loops.’
–Edward Reilly, Geelong Advertiser
Table of Contents
Bird; The Language in My Tongue: Enigma; Grand mal; The language of the serpent; Transformation; First breath; Words on mirrors; Miniature death; In the bath; 24 hours; Devils; Falling woman; Falling stars; No names; Tongue without words; Black hole; Senseless; Hyphen; My body is a country; Tongue; Teeth; They thought you were dead; Dying stars; Underworld; Eurydice; Dream moon; New tongue; The well; Oracle; The language in my tongue; Eyes; The skin on my tongue; Traces; EEG; Strobe; Concrete words; Sixteen years; The flood; Ransom; Relearning the language caught inside my tongue; Belly language; ECT; Thesaurus; Seized: Variations on Sappho’s Fragment 31; Tongue Tied:; Hilda's journey; The improbable city; Year’s end; Unripe; Gone; Hell and back; Tongue tied; The pot; No witness; Microlandscapes; Synapse; Starfish; I saw eternity; Meditation on Falling; The Adventures of an Epileptic; Acknowledgements