Bird & Other Writings on Epilepsy

Birds don’t fly with leads, I said. / Safety belts are to learn with, not to live with – / I’m safer on the trapeze than crossing the road. / And I do that every day, often by myself. So thirteen-year-old Avis argues when confronted by the limitations imposed on her at school. She has epilepsy and some of the teachers want to stop her from participating in the sport she loves most. From societal limitations to the inner experience of seizures, Susan Hawthorne’s poetry takes the reader on a journey rarely recorded. Physical injury, memory loss, explorations of consciousness and language are the concerns of the poet.