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  • A Tight-Rope Act
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A Tight-Rope Act

Gael Turnbull

Holding our breath
in apprehension,
we grasp life.


Gael Turnbull

from There Are Words: Collected poems (Shearsman Press, 2006)

Reproduced by permission of the author’s Estate.

Tags:

breath haiku illness short poems Tools of the Trade

About this poem

This poem is included in the second edition of Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors (Scottish Poetry Library, 2016). The anthology was edited by Kate Hendry; Dr Lesley Morrison, GP; Dr John Gillies, GP and Chair, Royal College of GPs in Scotland (2010-2014); Revd Ali Newell, and Lilias Fraser. A copy of the first edition was given to all graduating doctors in Scotland in 2014 and 2015, and with support from RCGPS and the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, to all graduating doctors in 2016, 2017 and 2018. We are very grateful for the individual donations which funded the cost of this anthology, and to the Deans of the Scottish medical schools who made it possible to give the books to their graduating students.

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Gael Turnbull1928 - 2004

Gael Turnbull was a poet and medical practitioner whose work ranged from prose poetry and collage poems to inventive ‘poem-objects’, all expressing a ‘delight in language and in the possibilities of utterance’.
More about Gael Turnbull

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