Riddance
Posted by Simon Parke, 28 July 2015, 4.56pm
My poem of the week is by the poet Anthony Wilson and called ‘Riddance’.
It’s from an anthology of the same name, published by Worple Press.
Judi Sutherland said ‘the collection reflects on the poet’s experience of diagnosis, treatment, and survival of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. As such, it perfectly embodies Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’; all of the poems were written after Wilson’s recovery.’
Riddance
What kept us going or sane
could be Col’s Jamie Oliver Bolognese
- for afters a tub of Cherry Garcia -
we’ll always associate with cancer.
Or, what we say we want to forget’s
in the end what made it bearable
those vigils in the kitchen over coffee
when really there wasn’t much to discuss
a test that in normal life isn’t one
what happens when you’re not looking
or looking the other way
nice though that is sometimes, beautiful even.
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