Description

By Leslie H Hanna

ISBN: 978-1-78382-116-7
Published: 2014
Pages: 48
Key Themes: Mental Health, Poetry, Schizophrenia

Description

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”.

‘The Poetry Modern’ is Leslie H Hanna’s second published poetry collection, the first, ‘Days of Hanna’ is also available through chipmunkapublishing.

Book Extract

Poem The Beauty

My god in the fields and the flowers
Oh heaven beauty
God descended around me
In buttercup and daisy
My poem daisy
Praise my god of wilderness
The drunkenness and fag
I shag a maiden
Among flower and tree
The honey bee
The cuckoo sound
Beauty wild flower
The buttercup of fag
That sweet smoke
Flowers of my god
I am in the fields of Ireland
Yield of poppies
The dandelion smoke
Poppy of opium dreamers
The summer of flowers
I love Mona of Ireland
My land is dandelion
Dandelion is England
The beauty sun
I painted flowers of god
In the meadow of sun
The beauty summer
The beauty Mona of Ireland
I paint her nude
Poem of woodland nature
I am the sunrise
The sunflowers of Ireland
Beauty morn love surprise
The Easter Rising
Death of an Irish beast
Ireland the beast
I am a dieing flower
God’s dower of beauty
Beauty is dieing
I see the flowers of beauty
I poem field
Poem is my beauty
This is my love of god