better because

Inspired by the phrase 'My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart' taken from 'Song of Myself (Leaves of Grass)' by Walt Whitman.This now comprises a part of The Linkages Project into eachof my contemplationsI placemy heart the beating of my heart to enter thoughtrequiresthe whole of me or so I believe soI believe …

(PAD #056): apocola (2)

in the treeis the heartof the world I beatoutside it the day comesthat brings the night before I close my eyesI gazeon the green and I wonder what is beyond before I closemy eyesI wonder will the worldgo onand willthe world live onif I plantthe green one plantone treeone morepair of lungsto breathe will it …

(PAD #055): apocola (1) I see

I will be deadwhile you are still in our palliation knowI have loved youtoo well hardlyat all I have takeneverythingyouso willinggave me taken itas though it were mine alone everything as thoughmy own for me ... have I reallycaredfor you debatable I recallthat one time I planted a small treein the brown loam that was …

Rehearsing (aloud) (for The New Asylum book launch)

Some audio recorded poems from The New Asylum, together with a little contextual back story, on my author page. Please feel welcome to check it out. While there, a number of audio poems from the WW1 series have been posted as well. ______________________________________________________________________________ Would . world, new poetry collections and giveaways? Subscribe to my monthly …

Guest author: Frank Prem ~ The New Asylum

It’s my privilege to appear in a guest author spot over at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo blog.

On this visit I’m talking about some of my early experiences of the Mental Asylum in my hometown, and it’s been a great pleasure to audio record a few poems from this era – taken from my new collection The New Asylum – so folk can get to listen to the poems, rather than read them. I hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing yor reactions.

Cheers,

Frank

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

Hello Sue and hello readers. Thank you for inviting me back.

I thought I might tell a little of the back story to my new poetry collection – The New Asylum a memoir of psychiatry.

“…a wonderful collection of colourful, sad, genial, well-meaning and, yes sometimes, mad characters, both staff and residents…” Review excerpt.

The collection is about my journey through a lifetime association with psychiatry and mental health service provision and psychiatric nursing care. The journey starts with myself as a child, and follows me through psychiatric nursing and acute care provision, inpatient unit management and long term rehabilitation.

For this article, I felt it might be of interest to readers of your blog to get an introduction to myself as a child associating with an old institution – Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum, over here in Beechworth, the town I grew up in, in Australia.

There is an…

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A review from LIbraryThing

". . . If I had to pick one book over the past year that has truly resonated with me, this would be it. It's a hauntingly beautiful window into the successes and failures of working with the mentally disabled, and the impact on the human psyche." (5 stars). Many thanks to Kathleen for posting …

Frank’s World War 1 poems

You might remember these from a little while back - photographs from the Somme and other Western Front battlefields of World War 1 that Australian troops were involved in. I think I posted about 50 here, but wrote around 120, with a view to chasing some funding to put them into book form. I had …

too suddenly

Inspired by the phrase 'made a sudden leap' taken from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T. S. Eliot.This now comprises a part of The Linkages Project I playwith intuition I tamperwith my future days I look aheadIlike to knowwhat’s coming whatis coming I makea sudden leap becausesuddenlyI know and I am upon …

The New Asylum – Mayday Hills burning

How hot is The New Asylum? A timely question . . . No, not really. Today (October 22nd, 2019) there was a report on the local news of a small fire on the grounds of the old Mayday Hills Hospital. Not too much damage done and hopefully restore-able. The news reminded me of rapidly the …

Review of The New Asylum by Frank Prem

Thank you Mick Canning for a wonderful review of The New Asylum.

Mick is based in the UK and is an author and artist I admire very much.

Scoot across to his place and check out his work, if you have a moment.

Mick Canning

This is Australian poet Frank’s third collection of poems, and in a way this is a return to the narrative arc of his first collection; Small Town Kid, after the heartbreak of his second collection, Devil in the Wind, which dealt with the horrors of the bush fires in Australia on what became known as Black Saturday in February 2009

Not only is this a personal, time-ordered narrative like Small Town Kid, but it takes up Frank’s life where that collection left off, with his taking a job at the institution in his home town housing people with mental health problems. At that time (around forty years ago), these institutions were generally known as ‘mental asylums’ although that name, as well as a lot of the attitudes that coloured people’s ideas of them, have supposedly been consigned to history.

These poems take us on Frank’s journey from his visits to…

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