Poetry
“. . . I have willed my body to the furthering of science. / Although I’ll not be there / to chronicle my findings / I can imagine all the students / poring over me: / “My God, is that a liver? / And those brown cauliflowers are lungs?” / “Yes, sir, a fine example of how not to live.” / “And what about the brain?” / “Alas the brain. I doubt if this poor sample / ever had one.” As with his forceps / he extracts a single rose. . .”
“. . . Ten tall sunflowers grew in my garden / they played the incomparable artist's game / one black eye each and a dart / that was the start of my garden / / Then I walked through the trees of adolescence / the angry walnut and sheltering beech / a seed was sown in an ebony heart / let the bud decide where the flower shall fall . . . “
“ . . . In her dying she is yet lovely / her silence swings like a sea-plant / at the ocean's edge; the madonna bones / in their cardboard coloured wrappings / make no quiver; yes, secret, she lies / and silent. / / Ninety years a spinster — they say / she was rich once — nieces and nephews say — / Hey Sheila! One each side of her, solicitors sit / tearing the hospital cloth / with their ravenous backsides. . .”
The Collections
The Mad Cyclist, 1970, New Writers' Press
The Fly and the Bedbug, 1984, Beaver Row Press
Dostoevsky's Grave, 1993, Dedalus Press
The White Beach, 1998, Salmon Poetry
The Noise of Masonry Settling, 2006, Dedalus Press
Them's Your Mammy's Pills, 2015, Dedalus Press
New poetry publications 2022
from Lepus Print and Salmon Poetry
A fascinating selection of 33 poems with commentaries from 33 artists
This landmark publication brings together all Bardwell's prevous collections plus 94 other poems sourced from her papers and from periodicals
sketches
