Dunedin-based poet Sue Wootton has
shared equal second prize in the prestigious International Hippocrates Prize
for Poetry and Medicine for her poem ‘Wild’.
Prize winners were announced in London on
18 May at the International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine.
Sue said she was inspired to write ‘Wild’
when a friend was in the throes of tests and treatment for cancer.
“Technically,
her care was excellent. Her body and its biochemistry were expertly mapped and
monitored; treatment was successfully planned and carried out. And yet, and
yet… this endless focus on the analysis of our component parts, and in turn of
their components, and of the parts of their parts – all this can diminish a
person. All this can make a person disappear. ‘Wild’ is the
disappearing voice asserting itself: uncontrollable, complex, inter-related and
essential.
The 2013 competition attracted over 1000
entries from 32 countries and was judged by distinguished poet Jo Shapcott,
psychiatrist and medical writer Dr Theodore Dalrymple, and Roger Highfield,
science writer and Director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group.
New Zealand poets have fared well in the
competition with Auckland poet CK Stead winning the inaugural award in 2010
and Albany poet Johanna Emeney placing third in 2011.
About Sue Wootton
Sue Wootton is a New Zealand poet and
writer, whose publications include three collections of poetry (Hourglass,
Magnetic South and By Birdlight), a children’s book called Cloudcatcher, and,
most recently, the short story collection ‘The Happiest Music on Earth’ (Rosa
Mira Books 2013 rosamirabooks.com).
A former physiotherapist, Sue has a
long-standing interest in the intersection of science and the humanities
generally, and poetry and medicine in particular.
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