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  • in hospital
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in hospital

Tom Leonard

I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)

it’s not
“women being in their place”
or knitting the chains that keep them down

just

the future, knitting the future
the present peaceful, quiet
as if

the same woman knitting
for a thousand years


Tom Leonard

from access to the silence: poems and posters 1984-2000 (etruscan, 2004)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

hospitals knitting National Poetry Day 2005 poems on postcards the future women

About this poem

in hospital National Poetry Day 2005 postcard

This poem was reproduced on a postcard for National Poetry Day 2005. Eight poetry postcards are published each year by the Scottish Poetry Library to celebrate National Poetry Day and are distributed throughout Scotland to schools, libraries and other venues. The theme for 2005 was the future. You can find out more about National Poetry Day in our National Poetry Day pages, where you’ll also find resources to go with the poems.

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Tom Leonard1944 - 2018

Born in Glasgow, Tom Leonard was best known for poetry written in the urban speech of that city. This, and his seminal critical writings, have had a major impact on attitudes to language and writing in Scotland, and beyond.
More about Tom Leonard

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