<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Douglas Dunn’s Elegies<\/strong><\/p>\n A cold night in Kirkcaldy, November, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nWinds from the Forth examining the town.
\nAn old college building near the water,
\nGusts analysing the windows where my
\nnight school class sits ingesting the poems
\nabout a diagnosis and a death
\nabout a poet searching for redress.
\nOne minute they’re all sitting on their chairs
\nquietly absorbing the images,
\nThe next, there is a sob of such deep pain:
\nOne woman is in tears, others comfort.
\nWe stop the class and go down for coffee.
\nStories about their lives.\u00a0About their pain \u2013
\nA lesson for me in what readers bring
\nout in a poem, conjuring its life
\nfrom the raw power of words to hurt and heal.
\nIn the cafe that might a woman talked
\nabout her mum who’d died the year before,
\nAnother talked about a scare she’d had.
\nThe brother of a third receiving care.
\nThe death toll mounted as we sipped our drinks.
\nWe agreed it had been a catharsis \u2013
\nThe poems had read their way inside us,
\nHad brought out the sadness that we live with,
\nThe consolations of November winds.<\/p>\n