https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] SINGING THE VOID Volume 1 Submitted by Dorothy Alexander for the Degree of PhD to the University of Glasgow October 2006 Practice-led research conducted in the Department of English Literature University of Glasgow © Dorothy Alexander 2006 ProQuest Number: 10390610 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10390610 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 GLASGOW I'"' VERSiTY yLÎJüRARY: Abstract Prose fiction and original poetry are contained in a single work of creative writing titled ‘Cage’, and an associated commentative journal, ‘Out of the Cage’. ‘Cage’ is centred on the lives and welfare of a community of demented elderly patients who inhabit a ward in an outdated Victorian asylum. A student nurse arrives to start her psychiatric placement there, and, over the next eight weeks, she, the patients and those who care for them are portrayed in various situations from the banal to the abusive. In an environment where standards of care fall below the ideal, she acts as witness and potential agent of change. The work is arranged as an integrated rhythmic sequence, a prosimetrum, in which language events and prosodic practice correlative to the liminal and broken discourse of the patients taper into silence and dislocated meaning. The narrative modulates from conventional prose through disrupted and violated texts (including poems which are processually derived using the prose sections as palimtext) to conversational monologues in which the patients speak as themselves before they became ill. The majority of these monologues are in Borders Scots dialect. ‘Out of the Cage’ reflects on the author’s desire to intuit and reveal the disease processes and states of being of those afflicted by dementia, and how this, coupled with intense questioning about the determination of the line ending within the tradition of free verse, led to the devising of original techniques for constructing poems based on those normally associated with avant-garde and experimental poetics, and which increasingly emphasised a non-linear kinetic. Notational and descriptive, it provides a complementary commentary on the process by which the disrupted texts and poems were obtained from the prose narrative and associated material with reference to relevant critical and literary texts. Approaches from pattern haunt s ilic e hdunt the trat^ction There in mystery syllables inject exactness re-placings mixThelnevitable the gift random and yes sudden aleatory works to itself nam^iy_0^lank) reality constructed relationships need intuition these yieldntg-^-ünmanent miracle —> poems Alzheimer’s withering redundant em ^i^n^quasi phrases Art, manifest in anxiety that thought “And arrjang^d^Wrd^vortices 1983 juxtapositions as if!” la cage putting sprung textt ;e flnesnear-empty th a t danced, danced semantically Contents Volume 1 CAGE 11 - 339 Soon, ideas of miracle may fade 1 3 -1 4 (Day 1) Corridor 1 5 -1 7 Kedzie Hears the Report from the Night Staff 1 8 -2 3 night sweated and opposite 24 Joan Wakes Up 25 - 34 She wanted to give the woman a wash 35 he wanted to 36 empty almost 37 his lips disappear me 38 (Day 11) Harry Dozes in a Shaft of Sunlight that Dusts its Parallels Down from a High Window 39 - 41 Harry Gets up for Breakfast 4 2 -5 4 do you take sugar in it 55 something insistent 56 Nursing Care Study of Patient A. Aged 78 57 - 63 110 in clinic 54 His wife died 55 Florrie’s Wound 56 - 72 medicine is sarcasm 73 5 Monologue Intro. 1 74 I wis hert sair 75 - 77 this yellow curl 78 he died 79 Joan is sitting very still 8 0 -8 1 John Tries to Get a Bit of a Singsong Going 82 - 95 sing “Anon 96 Wee Mary is Seen by Aurel and Has her Medication Reviewed 9 7 -1 0 0 Mary fragile inside two syllables 101 death moved his head round 102 sdinnae 103 lips seed ends 104 I’m afraid.” here 105 extend degrees of pattern 106 (Day 22) Mr. Bunton Visits his Wife, Alice 107 - 116 Alice (Monologue) 117-118 my darling cut This weary blue 119 please. Remember 120 I’ve got peace 121 the mad sing 122 After Lunch 123-125 lipreading the beautiful hello 126 me I’ve a pretty wound 127 numb worry 128 Jimmy Opens the Door 129-140 6 this suggestion 141 said, day. 142 Isa is Forcibly Injected with Promazine Hydrochloride 143-148 seconds screech 149 - 150 the disease muffled her 151 isa is insane 152 Jeannie’s on the Move 153 - 154 (Day 27) Jack 155-158 his face there 159 Kedzie Comes Back from Supper 160-163 Monologue Intro. 2 164 ma man wis at Monte Cassino 165-167 (Day 30) Michelle Baths Bill 168-176 dusk aches that deepens 177 - 181 Helen Sees Angels 182 - 183 Monologue Intro. 3 184 a wee cuppae tea 185-189 couldn think 190 He sat up in today 191 - 192 her huge choir billowed at her lip 193 Monologue Intro. 4 194 when I was a girl 195-199 acts of love 200 7 SO I went and put flowers 201 the sun would shine 202 (Day 33) The Afternoon Toileting Session 203 - 211 A hymn for Bill 212-215 hell came entwined 216 empty hawthorn into The beautiful day 217 (Day 36) Susannah Smithson Pays a Visit 218 - 227 Monologue Intro. 5 228 frae I wis a laddie 229 - 234 I first was her tears 235 I miss the feel for summer 236 - 237 (Day 39) The Ward Meeting 238 - 255 Betty Slides Down the Chair 256 - 258 Nursing care Study of Patient B. 259 - 262 Betty and the Snow 263 - 265 (it was an affecting hyperorality 266 Betty’s eyes fed meaning to loss 267 if a bird 268 she’s no weel 269 Monologue Intro. 6 270 8 tell ee whae I saw the other day 271 - 279 • Memory Therapy 280 yelped, stop (five x five lines) 281 there followed a tour of the laundry cupboard (five x five lines) 282 absence 674 283 (Day 45) Joan Goes to Town 284 - 296 I i love you 297 Monologue Intro. 7 298 I worked on the top flat 299 - 305 (Day 47) Kedzie’s Conversation with Mags 306 - 307 (Day 50) Eva Loses It 308 - 316 woman 317 near roses we dream in the end 318 Florrie Dickson Dies 319 - 329 Florrie’s Vision 330 death lies, detached 331 Appendix: Kedzie Makes a Few Notes 333 - 336 Promazine Hydrochloride (Sparine) 337 - 338 What remains clear 339 Sound file 1 (Abstract) Contents Volume 2 Introduction and overview 342 - 346 Out of the Cage 347 - 586 Preliminary considerations and origins of techniques 347 - 395 Definitions of ‘cage’ processes 396 - 402 Notes on genesis of narrative style 403 - 412 Progression and development of the ‘cage’ 413 - 578 Extension of ‘cage’ techniques to other material 579 - 586 Appendix 587-675 Bibliography 676-680 Sound file 2 (wad pluht rimtic) 10 Acknowledgements A deep debt of gratitude is owed to the following: Professors Tom Leonard and Adam Piette, who supervised ‘Singing the Void’, for their unfailing support, intellectual challenge and stimulation, and incisive critical comment. Also to Tom, for his artistic insights, and for giving me the confidence to write in my first language, Borders Scots. Dr. Nick Selby who acted as enthusiastic second reader. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (formerly the Arts and Humanities Research Board) for financial support 2004 - 2006. The Scottish Arts Council for a Writer’s Bursary, March 2003, which enabled me to write what became an early version of Cage’. Glasgow University for giving me the opportunity to pursue Creative Writing as an academic discipline. My family. The work is dedicated to all sufferers of dementia, their families and those who care for them, and specifically to the memory of my grandmother, May Robson, who was afflicted by this condition. 11 CAGE 12 "There are places where the mind dies, so that a truth which is its very denial may be born." (Opening lines of The Wind at Djemila', Albert Camus)^ ^Camus, 1970, p. 75. 13 Soon, ideas of miracle may fade truth is become elaborate in spite of illusions 14 the farther, refusal 15 DAY 1 CORRIDOR From a little after seven twenty a.m., when she entered the main gate, until Eva and Linda came into the hallway at the end of the corridor, Kedzie’s nervousness was diffuse and fluid.