I am pleased to present, as a round-up of this year’s work on the project, the text of an article I wrote for issue 9 of Artemis Poetry, November 2012. My thanks to Kay Syrad for inviting me to write this piece and to Dilys Wood and Anne Stewart of Artemis Poetry for kind permission…
Category: Body
The Ethics of Genetics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, 3rd December 2012
Bobbie Farsides and Sue Eckstein invited me to contribute to a conference for fifth year medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. It was good to be back there fourteen months after the Self-portrait without Breasts project launched at BSMS in October last year. I was delighted and honoured to present the poems and…
Sitting with Laura’s images in the Forum
The morning after the Self-portrait without Breasts event at Exeter University, I spent a couple of hours sitting in the Forum, a little distance from the exhibition of Laura’s photos. I really wanted to study the images up close, admire the quality of Laura’s work, the quality of the prints (which is superb) but I…
Self-portrait without Breasts in Exeter, 27th November 2012
It was quite a journey by rail over the flood waters on November 27th, but what a wonderful event Andy Brown and Corinna Wagner and many others had organised at Exeter University. Thanks to all of you for everything you did to make it happen. Special thanks to Dr James Mackay for coming from London…
Home again
I’m back, after an invigorating trip to Boston, Montreal and Toronto. There’s plenty to process as I settle. There’s also another event to prepare for: ‘Self-portrait without Breasts’ at Exeter University on 27 November, by kind invitation of Andy Brown (Director of Creative Writing) for Exeter University’s Medical Humanities Theme and the new Humanities and…
Reading at the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre at Ryerson University, Toronto, 10th October 2012
I don’t know how to write about the experience of coming here to present my work – it has been too wonderful, really. Wednesday evening’s event was beautifully planned and organised, every detail generously thought through. Many thanks to Irene Gammel and her team at the MLC, and special thanks to John Wrighton. I feel…
A long weekend in Montreal
I set out from the UK with seventy copies of Excisions and forty copies of Breastless distributed between my checked case and my carry-on. Arriving in Boston, it was suggested that I was a geologist/rock-collector. En route from Boston to Montreal this was modified. ‘This is heavy!’ exclaimed the kind and very strong young woman who somehow…
Reading at the Yawkey Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, 4th October 2012
The brand new Yawkey Center of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is impressive. The architects consulted with staff, visitors and patients to create an ‘environment designed from the ground up to foster healing and maximize patient safety and comfort’. There is really wonderful art (350 pieces – some especially commissioned, some on loan from the Museum of…
Flying west
Yesterday evening I crossed the Atlantic, into the setting sun. Seven hours of dusk. I have come to Boston to talk and read poems at the Blum Resource Center of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on Thursday 4 October. This is such a privilege. Here is something about the Dana-Farber: Dana-Farber employs more than 3,680 people….
More goodbyes
Until my risk-reducing surgery in December 2006, I was screened twice a year. That was a lot of mammograms, scans and breast appointments, over the years! When I was finally discharged, six weeks after my operation, it was quite something. 27 January, 2007 The surgeon looked visibly relieved to see me so well and ‘happy’…
Clare Best 