Poetry in Motion – A Response to Tourette’s Hero

As you may know, from a previous post, I am a huge fan of Tourette’s Hero, and follow her both on twitter (@touretteshero), and through her blog, which you can access by clicking on this link.

I wanted to write about her again, because I was particularly struck by how fine, eloquent and articulate her answer to David Cameron’s latest gaffe about disability is.  It has already been printed in the Guardian, but you can read it here, on her blog.  I wanted to write something myself, but she has said it better than me. I bow to her fluency.

Then there is the latest entry about a ticcing fit in Holborn underground station, which she writes about with such calmness and pragmatism, when all I could think as I read it, was how frightening it would be, and wondering how I would cope in such a situation.

I still don’t know.

Later this evening I found myself thinking about the post again, this time for entirely different reasons.

She writes:

I couldn’t speak or control what was going on but I did think how odd it was to be having this strange view of Holborn Underground station.

Soon the fluorescent-clad backs of station staff formed a glowing screen around me and prevented people walking into me.

This last line I found rather beautiful, and it reminded me of Ezra Pound’s poem;

‘In a Station of the Metro.’

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

I know the situation that she describes is not good, but she has to live through it whether it is good or not, and her writing is so powerfully evocative of these experiences, which surely has power for her, and for those who read her words? Surely that is good?

It amazes me that this line has woken up such poetry in me.  I am truly grateful.