Samantha Carr explores her experience of chronic illness through a series of three prose poems, accompanied by her experimental, surrealist artwork.
Unwanted Gift
As she peels the last of the wrapping paper, she suppresses her rage with a smile. It’s
a doll. A doll tied down to the box with wire. A design feature to prevent escape. This
is not a gift. She’ll have to brush its hair, or they will say she can’t even look after
synthetic locks. She’ll have to dress her in the latest doll fashion, or they will tell her
she could feel better if she only took more care. She begs the plastic figure to help
with the off and on of all these layers. But doll’s lips weren’t designed to talk. Doll
speaks with her body instead – lifts one shoulder back and forth until a sickening pop.
Then pops again, as though dolls weren’t designed to feel pain. Tiny stick arms fall,
exposing armpit holes where she sees the gift’s potential. The instant relief of those
plastic limbs in place of her faulty, dislocated flesh. She watches nerve endings creep
from exposed sinew, bite into doll’s defences. Too weak to protect the pelvis, a stripped
torso hangs limp, held up only by restraints. Modelling her new body, she struts up and
down the bedroom carpet as they watch from the hallway, proud of their intervention.
See – all you needed was a distraction.
Overgrowth
The trees at the front of the flats were overgrown. On windy days, of which there are
many by the sea, the branches would call against the walls and the tenants became
afraid that open windows would invite them in, and they’d never want to leave. As birds
edged closer to newly built nests inside, they laid claim to the land below. The
postman, more used to guard dogs, weaved around the bird shit path. The trees
thrived on the residents’ fear as the council preferred to let nature survive. At an
impasse, a hi-vis man arrived. Any negotiations he conducted with the flora could not
be heard above the throaty chatter of his chainsaw and chipper. Tree surgery is an
operation and dangerous. Observe the need to wear ear defenders against the
outrage of the arboreal. The trees gave up branch after branch, the chipper chipped,
and the tenants welcomed back the sky. Three naked trunks stripped of their intentions
and a decapitated bird on the path. The residents argued about the head and the
blame. The postman stepped over the carrion. Under the soil, roots reabsorbed their
remains.
The Respiratory Physician Tells Me to Lower My Expectations
And of course he’s right. I’d sat there telling him how I ran the London marathon 20
years ago. That’s unrealistic. I didn’t even mention that I came first in a baby
competition at just five months old. That’s the problem – I’d peaked too early. I’ve been
trying to get back to those glory days. I’m not going to be a baby again, never again.
Time only flows this way >>>>>>> and I’ve always known that. Not to brag, but my
first words were tick-tock way before that was even a concept for an app. No more
running – I can live with that, welcome it even. But what to do with the knowledge that
time outran expectations? I tell him I’ll build a time machine – using discarded inhaler
cartridges. Tiotropium rhymes with plutonium, and that has to mean something. Yes,
the spent fuel shells will relax the muscarinic receptors on the space-time fabric, which
is how the flux capacitor must have worked. I thank the Doc for bringing this to my
attention. He says he’ll see me again in six months.
Creative Commentary
Samantha is based in Plymouth, UK, where she is a PhD Creative Writing candidate exploring her experience as both a nurse and a person living with a Pokémon-style collection of diagnoses through prose poetry. These conditions include joint hypermobility syndrome, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, and attention deficit disorder. Despite the systemization of medicine into departments of ‘respiration,’ ‘skin,’ ‘bones,’ etc., research points towards a connection between these conditions (Morgan, AW, Pearson, SB, Davies, S, et al, p. 1369-1373; Kacperczyk, J, et al, p. 57296).
The collection is a patient contribution to an imagined medical record framed through Roper, Logan, and Tierney’s ‘Activities of Living’ nursing model as an example of a holistic process (Peate, p. 39). The collection aims to emerge from the chaos of the narrative wreckage described by Arthur Frank in The Wounded Storyteller, and answer Woolf’s call for “…illness…to take its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature” (Frank, p. 53; Woolf, p. 8).
The work engages with the prose poem as described by Noel-Tod in the Penguin Book of the Prose Poem as a way “…to challenge restrictions…” through neosurrealism and Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome (Noel-Tod, p. xxxvii; Kuppers, p. 97). This lived experience anamnesis creates juxtaposition with the norms of clinical writing, forming new ways of meaning-making and knowing both within and outside the illness experience.
About the Author
Samantha Carr is a PhD Creative Writing candidate at the University of Plymouth, exploring complex chronic illness through prose poetry. Her work has been published in Acumen, Arc, Corporeal, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Belfast Review. She can be found on Threads and Instagram as @samc4_rr.
Reference List
Frank, Arthur W. The Wounded Storyteller Body, Illness and Ethics. Second Edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Kacperczyk, Julia, et al. ‘Does It Take the Joints to Stretch a Mind? The ADHD and General Joint Hypermobility Connection.’ Quality in Sport, 37, (Jan 2025): p. 57296, doi.org/10.12775/QS.2025.37.57296.
Kuppers, P. Disability Culture and Community Performance: Find a Strange and Twisted Shape. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2011.Available from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/plymouth/detail.action?docID=741953 [Accessed 24.4.25].
Morgan, AW, Pearson, SB, Davies, S, et al. ‘Asthma and airways collapse in two heritable disorders of connective tissue.’ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 66:10 (2007): p.1369-1373, doi.org/10.1136/ard.2006.062224.
Noel-Tod, Jeremy (Editor). Penguin Book of the Prose Poem. UK:Penguin Books, 2018.
Peate, Ian (Ed). Nursing Care and the Activities of Living. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated, 2009.Available from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/plymouth/detail.action?docID=480479 [Accessed 25.11.24].
Woolf, Virginia. On Being Ill. London: Renard Press, 1926.
