The Companionship of Books: About Poetry by Peter Leyland
The Companionship of Books: About Poetry* This chapter is all about poetry+. It begins with my stay in Broad Green Hospital when I was sixteen for an operation on a torn cartilage. I had been attempting a descent from the wall bars during a school gym lesson and had landed awkwardly, so awkwardly in fact that every time I tried to run for the morning bus my knee would lock into a fixed position and necessitate a system of contortions on the ground in order to free it. Mr Almond, who saw me in Rodney Street, just around the corner from The Liverpool Institute, took one examination and immediately booked me into Broad Green for the operation. I arrived there to find myself in a ward full of men with their legs either covered in bandages or underneath raised frames, which allowed their legs to rest underneath, without the pressure of the bedclothes. On the ward I met Alan who was a trainee teacher. We were in adjacent beds and he talked to me about novels and poetry, particul...