‘It gets harder.’
‘What does?’
‘It. Everything. Teaching. Writing. Listening to you.’
‘I didn’t see that coming.’
‘You never do.’
‘You’d think it would get easier.’
‘That was my line!’
‘You would, though.’
‘But it doesn’t, does it. Every time just like the first. The filling classroom. The blank page. All I have learned is that I have learned nothing. I know nothing. Nothing. The terror never ebbs, it only burgeons, the mind an echo chamber replying to itself in the darkness. I can’t go on like this. I can’t.’
‘But you have to,’ the book says.
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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 
Also you can. I don’t think you have to. But you CAN.
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Can. Can’t. Toucan
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Embrace your Nothingness; that is your wisdom. Shed the Terror. Don’t ask.
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Never explain
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Except in poetry …..
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I’m getting rather worried about you. 😦
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Hmm mm
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And that voice that whispers, “They will find you out. There’s no escape.”
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I know it.
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This rings such a bell… and I’m not sure whether that is reassuring or leading to despair.
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Thank you. Either way.
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Hi Anthony,
Loving your work – just wanted to say thank you for your musings especially one about cancer
Cheers
Matt
Best,
Matt
Matthew Lowe
Twitter : mattlowe1974 Tel. : 07841 052514
>
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Thanks Matt!
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