Indelible Miraculous

By Julia Darling

This collected edition commemorates the 10th anniversary of Julia Darling's death, and includes a substantial selection of unpublished work. Jackie Kay writes: "The poems are funny, irreverent, moving and never sentimental. You can recognise yourself in them, recognise your family. They are warm, full of compassion; [...] a shining bright light."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arc Publications
• Release date: May 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910345290

Book preview

INDELIBLE, MIRACULOUS

Published by Arc Publications

Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road

Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK

www.arcpublications.co.uk

Copyright in the poems © Estate of Julia Darling, 2015

Introduction copyright © Jackie Kay, 2015

Copyright in the present edition © Arc Publications, 2015

Design by Tony Ward

Printed by Lightning Source

978 1910345 30 6 (pbk)

978 1910345 31 3 (hbk)

978 1910345 29 0 (ebk)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sudden Collapses in Public Places and Apology for Absence were first published by Arc Publications in 2003 and 2004 respectively. The early poems first appeared in the following publications: ‘Small Beauties’ in Small Beauties (Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Libraries, 1988); ‘Reminiscence’ & ‘Gladys’ Last Attack’ in Modern Goddess (Diamond Twig, 1992); ‘Forecasting’ & ‘Buying Cars’ in both Modern Goddess and Sauce (Bloodaxe & Diamond Twig, 1994); and ‘Men on Trains’, ‘Good Taste’, ‘Playing Pool’, ‘World Cup Summer’, ‘Be Kind’, ‘Coming Out 1, 2 & 3’, ‘Newcastle is Lesbos’ & ‘Journey with a Golden Lady’ in Sauce.

The Editor would like to thank Colette Bryce, Linda France and Ellen Phethean for their invaluable help with putting this volume together.

Cover photograph: © Sharon Bailey, 2015

Cover design: Tony Ward & Ben Styles

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.

Editor for the UK and Ireland:

John W. Clarke

Julia Darling

Indelible,

Miraculous

Edited by Bev Robinson

Introduced by Jackie Kay

Arc.TIF

2015

CONTENTS

Editor’s Preface

Introduction

SUDDEN COLLAPSES IN PUBLIC PLACES

High Maintenance

Impersonation

A Comforting Car Park

Waiting Room in August

Too Heavy

Things That Should Never Have Happened

Satsumas

Insomnia

Healer

Square Dancing

Waiting Room

Don’t Worry

Living in the New Extension

Water Power

Vanity

Dental Attention

Where the Living Meet the Dead

Things I Have Lost

The Boy’s Room

Macaroon

Facial

Afternoon Films

Doing the Crossword

The Grove

Out of Here

Hospital Geography

The Mill

Wooden Spoon

Turkish Bath

Virginia

Ward Thirty-Six

Chemotherapy

Sudden Collapses in Public Places

Ancestry

Convalescence

End

FIRST AID KIT FOR THE MIND

How to Behave with the Ill

How to Deal with Terrible News

Recipe for a Curative Soup

How to Negotiate Hospital Corridors

How to Frighten Cancer

How to Paint your Self-portrait

How to Speak to Tired People When You Visit Them in Hospital

APOLOGY FOR ABSENCE

Visualisation

Ways of Discussing My Body

Living in the Moment

This is a Day of Soup

Injection

The Water Extractor

Getting There

Email

Probably Sunday

Salsa Dancing Class, Heaton

Large Old Men

Phone Call from the Hospice

When I was Healthy Things Were Often Yellow

Parenting

Turn Off the Lights When You Go to Bed

Impossible

Apology for Absence

After All That

My Daughters Reading in May

Satisfactory

Days of Terrible Tiredness

Sleeping in March

September Poem

Night Sweat

My Complicated Daughter

Listening to Jack Listening to Music

Nurses

Weight

Two Lighthouses

Rendezvous Café: Whitley Bay

Old Jezzy

A Short Manifesto for My City

My Thumb in Leeds

Moving to the Country

Coat

Hollow

The Recovery Bed

My Old Friend Hospital

It’s Nearly Time

Hearing Things

It’s Not Over

Indelible, Miraculous

EARLY WORK PUBLISHED 1988–1994

Small Beauties

Forecasting

Reminiscence

Buying a Brassiere

Buying Cars

Gladys’ Last Attack

Good Taste

Playing Pool

World Cup Summer

Men on Trains

Be Kind

Coming Out

Newcastle is Lesbos

Journey with a Golden Lady

UNCOLLECTED POEMS

A Happy Childhood

Bad Parent

Small Things in the Cupboards of Long Relationships

Recovery

Supermarket Shopping

Advice for My Daughters

Storyline

Sheep Pretend to Be Happy

Geraniums

Above Me

Operating Theatre

Festival Mass

Night Moment

A Night Off

Dark and Light

Vanities

It Might Work

Travellers

The Radio in the Morning

I Don’t Want Anything

Things That I Have Used Up

Entreaty

Biographical Notes

EDITOR’S PREFACE

Compiling this collection of Julia’s poetry has taken me on a journey through our lives, the places we visited, the girls growing up, the years living with cancer and facing death. The poems span from the title poem of Julia’s first pamphlet Small Beauties, which was published in 1988, to those she wrote in 2005 before she died. Her two books published by Arc, Apology For Absence (2004) and Sudden Collapses in Public Places (2003) form the backbone of this collection. Prior to these, Julia had published poems in two Poetry Virgins’ anthologies, Modern Goddess (1992) and Sauce (1994). The Poetry Virgins were a performance group that Julia formed with writer Ellen Phethean and actors Charlie Hardwick, Fiona McPherson and Kay Hepplewhite. When I was selecting from these anthologies, I could almost hear the poems being performed and was transported back to rooms full of laughter. Subsequently, some of the poems chosen are those I remember audiences enjoying the most, like ‘Buying Bras’, ‘Newcastle is Lesbos’ and ‘Forecasting’.

Poems from First Aid Kit for the Mind were originally printed on postcards as part of a collaboration between Julia and artist Emma Holliday. They were included within individual boxes that also contained special and unique objects, like a miniature painting set, worry dolls, and a rubber stamp for your medical notes saying ‘I know my body better than you do’. The poems were about living in the ‘land of illness’