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…
Category: Self-portrait without Breasts
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’…
The compulsion to write
During the days and weeks after surgery, the only thing I wrote, apart from emails and short notes and shopping lists, was my journal. That writing kept me going, it was a necessary link with my old self, and a way to watch myself become my new self. 2 January, 2007 All I really want…
The other side
I’ve never been a particularly good sleeper, but during the weeks immediately following my surgery, sleep was a very precious commodity indeed. So was patience! 21 Dec, 2006 Ten days exactly since the operation, since coming round in the recovery room, the white walls gradually swimming into focus, my ears stuffed with pain relief, a…
Final preparations
Tonight I launch my pamphlet Breastless (Pighog Press) – a selection of eleven of the Self-portrait without Breasts poems alongside some of Laura Stevens’ photos, together with an article by Gareth Evans on the science of hereditary breast cancer. Five years ago I was in the last few weeks of preparing for surgery. 24 Nov,…
Decision
The truest decisions are discovered, not made. They form when you’re looking the other way. You simply need to recognise them. It was a very good friend who helped me realise that I had already formed my decision to go ahead with the surgery, but that I just couldn’t speak it. Now the other decisions would…
Clare Best 