Why did I write it down?
In order to remember. Of course,
but exactly what was it
I wanted to remember?
How much of it actually
happened?
Did any of it?
Why do I keep a notebook at all?
…
Although I have felt compelled
to write these things down
since I was five years old,
I doubt
that my daughter
ever will,
for she is a singularly blessed
and accepting child
delighted with life
exactly as life presents itself to her
unafraid to sleep
and unafraid to wake up.
Keepers of private notebooks
are a different breed altogether
lonely and hesitant
rearrangers of things
anxious malcontents
children afflicted
apparently at birth
with some presentiment of loss.
Joan Didion, from Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Some found poems
August, by Tove Jansson
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Published by Anthony Wilson
I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. My most recent books are Deck Shoes (Impress Books, 2019), a book of prose memoir and criticism, and The Afterlife (Worple Press, 2019). In 2023 I will publish The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, with Blue Diode Press. My current research project, with Sue Dymoke from Nottingham Trent University and funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.
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Anthony Wilson 
Still remember the first time I read that. Her writing always grabbed me by surprise in the gut.
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Thank you!
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