The Artel Press looks forward this autumn to the publication of a new collection of poems from the writer and medical educator Prof Alan Bleakley.
The Bio-illogical explores the life of objects in 33 acutely observed poems which brilliantly tease out alternative readings of our natural world, and the detail of our place within it.
Bleakley’s poems offer a kind of inscape to the inanimate, be it old bones or a broken boat, a contemporary Hopkins perhaps – rooted in the wild of his native Cornwall.
His poetry is the unique product of a career spanning the assimilation and dissemination of medical knowledge, yet at ease with a broader segue into art and culture. A dramatic and confident vocabulary bridges these two worlds and makes for exhilarating reading.
Bleakley is Emeritus Professor of medical education and medical humanities at Peninsula Medical School, University of Plymouth. He is internationally acclaimed in his field and has published 20 books, over 150 articles and book chapters, and lectured around the world.
His poetry has been published in The Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Manhattan Review, London Magazine, Stand, Rialto, and five collections. He lives near Land’s End with his wife Sue who is a visual artist, and remains a keen surfer.
Publication date: Oct 2022
The human heart, a rib-caged oath / Grows as a tangled bush of holly green / Where a bursting fire can cinder / The holly head’s rush of growth.
Extract from The heart as a bird escaping a burning bush © 2023 Alan Bleakley
Pictured: Alan Bleakey. credit: Izzy Henshall
ISBN 9781739900335
48pp paperback / Royal
REVIEW COPIES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST