haven’t been invented yet
the body makes it up as it goes along
it can happen to anyoneit is 1965
my father steps out
into a sunny August morning
his body hasn’t told him yet
that today is a left turn day
that we’ll never see him again
his suit already dead in the wardrobe
his kids asleep
his wife in the shower
and everything behind him
as he approaches the corner‘Left’ (Evans 2004, p. 63)Here the father seems to have been adopting a role in his daily life which
is at odds with other hidden desires and aspirations. The poem is drama-
tised in terms of a split between mind and body, though we can see that
this clear-cut distinction (or binary opposition as it is sometimes called)
does not really hold up. It is not simply that there is an opposition between
body and mind, but that there is a split which engulfs both mind and body.
Although we talk about a split self, in fact the self may be multifold. It
is usually splintered rather than split, as it is in ‘I Am Told’ by British/Dutch
poet Johan de Wit:
Example 8.3
I am a liar, I am lazy, I am a nut, I am a fascist, I am a stranger, I am
nice, I am unbelievable, I am beautiful, I am mad, I am deaf, I am a
schizophrenic, I am stupid, I am weak, I am meek, I am a perfectionist,
I am handsome, I am naive, I am mean, I am irresponsible, I am
intelligent, I am a craftsman, I am nervous, I am divorced, I am for-
getful, I am a homosexual, I am a crook, I am an elitist, I am spiteful,
I am an unbeliever, I am a European, I am an artist, I am a poet, I am
a writer, I am a typesetter, I am a labourer, I am a student, I am a
soloist, I am a soldier, I am a sergeant, I am a husband, I am a lover, I
am an ex-lover, I am a bad-lover, I am a sex-lover, I am a good-lover,
I am a body, I am a sex-maniac, I am a political animal, I am a wreck,
I am shy, I am tired, I am critical, I am sceptical, I am old, I am young-
looking, I am sincere, I am a dreamer, I am a wanker, I am depressive,160 The Writing Experiment