Description
By Leslie Hanna
ISBN: 978-1-84991-293-8
Published: 2011
Pages: 56
Key Themes: poetry, schizophrenia, therapy, empowerment
Description
This is Leslie Hanna’s first published book of poems. He has chosen a selection of forty five poems from his extensive collection.
About the Author
Leslie Hanna was born on 28 June 1953 in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. He attended Bangor Grammar School and subsequently Belfast College of Art for one year. He became mentally unwell when age nineteen. He was diagnosed as having schizophrenia and since his teens has had a number of extended admissions to psychiatric in-patient care. In total he has spent ten years as an in-patient. He now lives independently outside Bangor, County Down.
Leslie developed an interest in poetry while a student. However it was not until 1997 that he began to express himself through his own writing. He finds this therapeutic and believes this has helped him see his life in a positive way. His writing has enabled him to bring back his sense of values and he states: I have re-discovered a sense of my old self”.
Book Extract
Dance
The little boy in blue
Dance among the tulips
The joy of daylight
Sing poetry of the flowers
Boy dreamer of the hour
Daisy chains and dance
Beauty you enhance
Boy of yellow morn
Born with flowers
Poem in sunlight
The chair by the window
Beauty and shadow
Flowers in poetry
The mother dressed in lace
The Sunday hat
And the ginger cat
Beyond the garden
I see the blue tree of the mad
Flower is sad
The memory of mother
Flowers of home
I see apple blossom
I see the mad and the asylum
Beauty and madness
Woman and the white dress
The hat
The slender purring cat
People beyond the garden
I close my eyes
Beauty of flower dies
The silence of solitude
I love the garden of the flowers
I sit by the window
I dream the afterlife
Without child or wife
Love of the tulips
Beauty on my lips
The little boy and the flowers
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