Notes From the Dementia Ward
5/5
()
About this ebook
Finuala Dowling
Finuala Dowling established her literary career as a poet. Her first collection, I flying, won the Ingrid Jonker Prize, her second, Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe, was a co-winner of the Sanlam Prize, and her third, Notes from the Dementia Ward, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Her previous novels are Flyleaf, Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart, which won the 2012 M-Net Literary Award for English Fiction, and The Fetch. In addition to novels and poetry, Dowling has published short stories in national and international anthologies, and has had plays and skits performed on stage and radio. Dowling is currently Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies at UCT. She has a D.Litt from Unisa, where she taught English for several years. She has also taught English and creative writing at the University of Stellenbosch.
Read more from Finuala Dowling
Homemaking for the Down-At-Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretend You Don't Know Me: New and Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Notes From the Dementia Ward
Related ebooks
Painting the Light Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoss O'Carroll-Kelly, The Miseducation Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sydney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undine: With an Introduction by S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTriple Helix: My donor-conceived story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Reject Your Metric Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWest Island: Five twentieth-century New Zealanders in Australia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAUSTRALIAN WOMEN CAN WALK: Gap Year 1979 India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBearded Ladies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Act of Grace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMelting Moments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Redeemable: A Memoir of Darkness and Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil's Trumpet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Unexpected Education of Emily Dean Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMad Bad Love: (and how the things we love can nearly kill us) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKayang & Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReading the Landscape: A Celebration of Australian Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dementia from the Inside: A doctor's personal journey of hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrenpoint Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEthan Frome: with an introduction by Edith Wharton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Days of My Mother Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSustainable Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn John Marsden: Writers on Writers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful Place Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary's Story: From Bob's Hut to Personalised Plates Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tour de Oz: The extraordinary story of the first bicycle race around Australia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spare Room Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Create the World Without Disease Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Not Taken and other Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Notes From the Dementia Ward
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Notes From the Dementia Ward - Finuala Dowling
Title Page
FINUALA DOWLING
Notes
from the
dementia
ward
KWELA BOOKS/SNAILPRESS
1. At eighty-five, my mother’s mind
At eighty-five, my mother’s mind
When she wanders from room to room
looking for someone who isn’t there,
when she asks where we keep the spoons,
when she can’t chew and spits out her food,
when her last dim light flickers with falling ash
and she exclaims: ‘What a dismal end to a brilliant day!’
when she calls her regular laxative an astronaut,
when she can’t hear words but fears sounds,
when she says: ‘Don’t go – I can’t bear it when you go,’
or: ‘Just run me off the cliff,’
or wants to know how many Disprin ends it,
then I think how, at eighty-five,
my mother’s mind is a castle in ruin.
Time has raised her drawbridge, lopped her bastions.
Her balustrade is crumbled, and she leans.
Yet still you may walk these ramparts in awe.
Sometimes when she speaks, the ghostly ensign flies.
Time cannot hide what once stood here,
or its glory.
Do not think that we are good
or merely tourists.
That which detains us
was once our fortress.
2. Taking
Taking
After two years of house arrest –
what they call ‘home care’ –
I take the soiled sheets from my sister,
put them in the machine,
lift the heavy carpet,
break down.
The men come running,
take the carpet from me
(something to do).
Then I steady my mad mother
who, staggering downstairs in her frail bones
and failing sight,
takes me in her arms and asks:
‘What is the matter, darling?
Whatever is the matter?’
3. Shift aside
Shift aside
Those nights I lay awake, calculating our ages:
I was ten to your fifty,
would be fifteen to your fifty-five,
twenty to your sixty.
I pushed them as far as they would