Shaping The Fractured Self Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain

Shaping The Fractured Self : Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain
ISBN: 9781742589312
Publication Date: 1 May 2017

Of course not all great art has its genesis in pain, and not all pain - not even a fraction - leads to the partial consolations of art. But if lancing an abscess is the surest way to healing, can poetry offer that same cleansing of emotional wounds ;

Shaping the Fractured Self showcases twenty-eight of Australia's finest poets who happen to live with chronic illness and pain. The autobiographical short essays, in conjunction with the three poems from each of the poets, capture the body in trauma in its many and varied moods. Because those who live with chronic illness and pain experience shifts in their relationship to it on a yearly, monthly or daily basis, so do the words they use to describe it.

Shaping the Fractured Self gives voice to sufferers, carers, medical practitioners and researchers, building understanding in a community of caring.

About the Author

Heather Taylor Johnson was born in the United States and has lived in Australia since 1999. Jean Harley Was Here is her second novel; her first was Pursuing Love and Death. She has published four volumes of verse and is the poetry editor for Transnational Literature. She is also the editor of the anthology Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain. Heather lives in Adelaide with her husband and three children.