Published poems by Veronica Ashenhurst, who has Severe ME

Simon M

Simon M

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
This thread contains excerpts from and links to all of Veronica's published poems.

Veronica Ashenhurst, a friend of mine who is a Canadian lawyer and now severely affected, wrote this poem about medical misogyny based on her experiences and beyond.

It has just been published in the poetry journal Uppagus.

I don't read a lot of poetry but think this one is wonderful but suspect that advocates are generally more appreciative of poems than many in the research-geek world I inhabit. And that you would be interested because of the subject matter.

Some excerpts are below but I hope people will visit the site for the full version.

Tarnished idol, whom I sought to revere: ...

You favoured male cell lines, male mice;
blithely sent us home with stopping hearts,
and peeling myelin sheaths. We were, you claimed,
just hurt by careless love or mired in sulk.

So certain were you that this hamstrung life—
dreams shipwrecked, stripped of rigging, in my depths—
was trifling, girlish neurasthenia:
Paxil and pure thoughts could will me back.

Medicine, will you reprove your faults?​
...

Full poem
 
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Veronica is on a roll - she's just had another poem published, called Patient.

It is about resilience:

Patient, by Veronica Ashenhurst

I felt muzzled in those flat, troubled years,
A desert tortoise who knew secret burrow,
Quiet’s heft, modest earth: I learnt the view from bed.
...

She inhaled
The world, then bellowed out. The sound was red
Missile, an echoing primordial roar.
We had been missing from our lives so long,
No one had thought to notice us before.

Read or listen to Veronica narrating the full poem at Wordgathering.

 
Three more remarkable poems from Veronica. Her best yet, in my view.

Bulwark: To Jane Eyre

On being housebound:
...far from
That turquoise line of beckoning, where sky
And earth embrace. I’m scared the arctic tern
Caged in my ribs will break its wings over
A view it cannot see, while walls close in.
...


Frontier

Yearning had become a foreign tongue
Recalled in crumbs. Want, at dawn, of another’s
Warmth, pulse, while I turned over, playing dead.
...


Dreams and the Hyena

–for S.M., in friendship

In youth, you and I were long-legged antelope:
Soaring springbok, eyes starred with prospect,
..
Then hyena singled us from the herd.
...


Read all three poems at Literary Yard
 
Achingly sad poems. Veronica might be physically limited but her poems soar out across the world.

I spent some time thinking about the use of amber in that last poem, 'in the amber country of my ancestors' - it sounds so warm and nostalgic. But, when I found out a bit more about Ukrainian amber I learned that its mining was part of intractable problems before the war - corruption, where the illegal miners earned many times the income of the police supposed to stop the mining; protection rackets; violence; dangerous work; and environmental devastation. This is the amber country of Ukraine in 2017:

Screen Shot 2022-10-28 at 3.10.24 pm.png

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/illegal-amber-mining-ukraine

So many people were having really hard lives there, just doing what they needed to to survive, even before the nightmare of the war.

"These wood-chiseled larks, a fleeting rosary.
In the old country, the craftsman writes to say
We will prevail, and the maimed sky bellows."
 
Hello S4ME poetry readers,


Sincere thanks for your kind words and support.


My particular thanks to Simon for posting my work on S4ME. Simon has edited drafts of my poems with a keen and energetic eye, and his comments and questions consistently improve my work.


My poem “Pill Box,” posted above, has been nominated for inclusion in the Best of the Net Anthology. The Anthology is published yearly by Sundress Publications, an American press. Poetry editors with an online presence nominate a selection of work they’ve published in the past year, and the anthology’s editors then choose what they especially like.


I don’t know if “Pill Box” will make the final cut, but I’m honoured to receive the nomination. I hope it brings more visibility to Russia’s illegal aggression against Ukraine, as well as raising awareness of the ME/CFS experience.


The nomination is here: https://star82review.blogspot.com/2022/10/nominations-for-best-of-net.html
 
Simon M said:
I had assumed that amber was a reference to the colour of a country on fire.
Click to expand...

Hutan said:
Achingly sad poems. Veronica might be physically limited but her poems soar out across the world.

I spent some time thinking about the use of amber in that last poem, 'in the amber country of my ancestors' - it sounds so warm and nostalgic. But, when I found out a bit more about Ukrainian amber I learned that its mining was part of intractable problems before the war - corruption, where the illegal miners earned many times the income of the police supposed to stop the mining; protection rackets; violence; dangerous work; and environmental devastation. This is the amber country of Ukraine in 2017:

View attachment 18442

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/illegal-amber-mining-ukraine

So many people were having really hard lives there, just doing what they needed to to survive, even before the nightmare of the war.

"These wood-chiseled larks, a fleeting rosary.
In the old country, the craftsman writes to say
We will prevail, and the maimed sky bellows."
Click to expand...
Hello Hutan, you and Simon. are both correct: amber is central in Ukr culture. It is now a reference to the country on fire. But amber is historically used by Ukrainian women almost daily as necklace wear because it is believed that amber brings health. Then we come to the whole amber industry! Amber is found in the western region of Ukr closer to Poland and Belarus (Rivne oblast). This area has not been massively bombarded yet by the Russians, though electricity outages are reported. Ukraine has the most or second most amber in the world. The poor do the digging, and though the govt has tried to control the industry there are still gangs (from who knows where--everywhere) collecting the dug up amber, transporting it out of the country, and selling it to be processed and then sold on the international market.
 
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