Kin E-Book

Karl Knights

• Herausgeber: The Poetry Business
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 18

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Karl Knights' Kin meet inside hospitals and grow up in waiting rooms and hospital cafeterias where 'nobody stares'. These are poems of survival in the face of disability and years of austerity; they are memorials to those who did not make it, powerful and sharply observed.

Leseprobe

Published 2022 by

New Poets List

An imprint of The Poetry Business

Campo House,

54 Campo Lane,

Sheffield S1 2EG

Copyright © Karl Knights 2022

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-914914-28-7

eBook ISBN 978-1-914914-29-4

Typeset by The Poetry Business

Printed by Biddles, Sheffield

Smith|Doorstop Books are a member of Inpress:

www.inpressbooks.co.uk

Distributed by IPS UK, 1 Deltic Avenue,

Rooksley, Milton Keynes MK13 8LD

The Poetry Business gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts Council England.

Contents

Growing Pains

I Have a Literal Mind

A Speech Impediment

The Difference Between a Dog and a Biscuit Tin

How to Wheel

Pushing My Sister

My Wards

First Meeting

Physio

The Spastic’s Guide to Sex

Adulting

Appointment in Clinic K

Kin

Keeping Up

Arthur Honeyman’s Birthday, 3am 1970

Hospital Coffee

The Night Before My PiP Tribunal I See My Dead

Dear Legs

For all my kin

Growing Pains

I didn’t know I was disabled.

I thought everyone went home

and sat in their wheelchairs.

*

The extra pair

of boxers and trousers

in the back of my school bag.

*

A fight in the playground,

he kicks my leg,

hits the splint. I smile.

*

The black woman in the mobility scooter

ruffled my spiky hair. She was the first

to see me, not the chair.

*

The old man in the electric wheelchair

joking outside the hospital toilets

‘Don’t go taking this for a ride.’

*

My parents give me a bear

with a lab coat and thermometer

from the hospital gift shop.

*

The first kiss and she says

‘I’m surprised

you can kiss.’

*

‘Why do you like the hospital?’

‘Nobody stares at me here.’

I Have a Literal Mind

Dad tells me to pull my socks up

and I yank them till they rip.

A teacher says take a seat,

I pick up the chair and walk out.

A Speech Impediment

Like his tongue was a snake

he told me. That year, I was his translator

and occasional censor. The Head said

‘What did he call me?’

We never spoke of it.

He didn’t ask about my legs

and I didn’t ask about his mouth,

that was the gift.