Poetry

The 25th Arvon International Poetry Prize was awarded last night to this poem by Sian Hughes. 'The Send Off', says the press release, is "a mother’s address to her child who has been buried in a hospital grave for those delivered too early to be registered as stillborn. It’s a haunting farewell to a baby that has been aborted after being diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome".  The 26 stanzas echo the 26 chromosome pairings in a healthy child; there is one extra line inserted in stanza 20, "unbalancing the poem and echoing the child's diagnosis".

The Send Off

Mummy has to go now. Sorry we were late.
I brought you a flower. No, it’s dead.

When you cut them, you see, they die.
The petals were white when I left.

I was sewing your name tags.
This is your name. I know it’s no use to you now.

Home clothes are not allowed. It’s the rules.
Your shawl is taped to your parcel.

Don’t be afraid. You are not alone,
and no one has a bed with a window.

The man with the spade brings you in
from the rain. The one in black says words.

In a few weeks they’ll come back
and let in more new friends.

The view changes each time. The sky,
believe me, is not always this cold.

When I was a little girl like you
I liked to look through the banisters

and see who was calling so late.
My parents in their fancy clothes

might turn and say “Who’s out of bed?”
The visitors blew kisses. Sometimes

they saved me something special
that the grown-ups had to eat.

My darling, sleep well in your bed.
Don’t come out on the landing where it’s cold

because, you see, I won’t come home
in my long dress and necklace

and blow you kisses up the stairs.
I won’t carry you back to bed

to rub your blue feet better
or fetch blankets from the box.

No, you don’t need a bottle, cuddle,
special rabbit, teddy, bit of cloth.

You don’t even need to close your eyes.
They were born that way, sealed shut.

You are a hard lesson to learn,
soft though you are, and transparent.

There’s a mark on your forehead –
the simple flaw that separates
the living from the dead.

It looks like I dropped you downstairs.
I didn’t. I promise. It was like this:

somebody did some counting
and when they added you up

they found one part of you didn’t match.
It’s supposed to come out even.

They call it trisomy twenty-one.
It’s not such a lucky number.

No, I know it doesn’t begin to explain
your lack of Christmas presents

or the colour of your skin. I know
the best smiles in the world come out uneven.

                                                            - Sian Hughes

Here's a link to The Arvon Foundation, which, incidentally, I couldn't recommend more highly if you're looking for a creative writing course.

Comments

[Sarah]

I do not believe that any of us can possibly understand the true horror of abortion unless we have lived it ourselves. Sian is a talented writer and does not deserve the cowardice critacisms that are being written. We are un aware of her situation at the time. Money, home, relationship stability are all factors that would effect this child if it had been born. Does a child deserve to be born into a world that cannot accept it and will not experience a good quality of life?

The birth of a child completley alters a womans life and Sian may not have been able to supply the support the child needed, being passed around foster homes and carers for the rest of its life is a cruel option. Abortion is sometimes the only path.

[Nico]

It's a beautiful poem. I cry every time I read or hear it.

[Andrea]

Please click on the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZlEHyXIC4c

Regards
Andrea

[Dan]

While I don't know the details of the author of this poem, I need to add one thing. I have a friend who's daughter (now four years old) has Downs Syndome, and I remember her sitting on my sofa sobbing about it as her Ob-doc-thingie was pushing for a termination.

By the same token, when Bethy was diagnosed in-utero with serious cardiac issues, we were being pushed along the abortion route, and very nearly took it. It wasn't till we met other parents that had been there, seen it and done it that our strength was renewed.

My point? Perhaps she felt like she had no choice, perhaps the docs convinced her it was a "better" option.

And what would I do in that position? I honestly cannot say, as it's not something that I can understand on a personal level :)

[Chris]

I think we need a balancing poem about a woman's joy in the child with Down's syndrome that she actually gave birth to.

Please read 'An extra chromosome for Freddie' at:

I love this poem -- this expresses actual love, faced with a real child and real life, not the mourning for the fantasy child that Sian is writing about.

[Morna Lawson]

I don't think that aborting a child out of sheer terror and sorrow for its imagined future makes anyone a bad person.

I think it's very important that the controversy this poem has raised on other boards is is not seen as an argument about abortion. I, like lots of parents of children with DS, would probably have terminated my pregnancy, had I known before my daughter was born, because of my limited and entirely outdated perceptions of the quality of life that people with DS and their carers can expect. My own experience with medical professionals was pretty positive. However there is a lot of anecdotal evidence and research conducted by the Downs Syndrome Association to show that many medical professionals are woefully ill-informed about the life chances of children with DS, and combined with prevailing negative attitudes to disability, there seems to be a tendency for the medics to seek to be allowed to resolve the issue by termination.

The medical model of illness sees a person with a disability as a problem to be tidied away; the social model sees the problem being attitudes to difference and imperfection. As a good liberal humanist, I've always paid accepted the social model argument in the abstract; it is only since my daughter's birth that I've seen the stark clarity of its truth: the greatest obstacle to achieving a happy and fulfilling life for people with disabilities is social attitudes and expectations, both at individual and legisative levels.

So for me it's not an argument about the rights and wrongs of abortion, but of changing attitudes to disability and imperfection by means of legislation so that the rights of people with disabilities are enshrined in legislation and respected by the broad populace. This is no different from the struggle for the rights of black people, women and homosexuals.

[Francesca Lambert]

for the other side of the story, see the lovely booklet called:-

'Continuing Pregnancy with a Diagnosis of Down's syndrome - a guide for parents'

Available on the DSA website as a PDF file
http://www.dsa-uk.com/DSA_lstLiterature.aspx#c4

See the comments from parents about not being given information.....

[Francesca Lambert]

Hmmmm, for a start there are 23 pairs of chromosomes, making 46, plus and extra 47th chromosome - i.e. Trisomy 21 (aka Down Syndrome).

I'm mum of the twin boys featured on these pages a few weeks back. I heard Sian on Woman's Hour and there were no complications and no the baby wasn't dead beforehand....

I find it sad and worrying that women may think this is the only option available to them. I don't need to tell the members of this board that children and adults with DS lead full and productive lives. The medical profession are misinformed, out-of-date and often have their own agenda.

I feel sad because Sian's experience could have been so much different. I do believe in a woman's right to chose but I don't agree with termination on the grounds of disability where it is compatible with life. Look at Stephen Hawking, all the special olympic athletes with physical and learning difficulties! It is the perceptions of others that holds people with DS and other conditions back, not the people themselves. Do you really think it's ok for someone with Down Syndrome to listen to the radio and hear that a mother 'loved' her child so much she aborted him/her??? I think it's offensive at best and actually I don't think it's that good a poem IMHO. Call me cynical but I think they're courting controversy as a way of getting publicity - aka previous Turner prizes etc. It could be used as a tool to warn people what a termination involves, let's hope so but what I would hate is that women hear this and think yes, that's the only thing someone could do.

From a very sad mother of beautiful twin boys with Down Syndrome

[India]

G - I have no idea whether the poem stems from the writer's personal experience, or whether she imagined the situation. Reading it, I would assume the former. But I don't think publishing it "promotes" the idea of selective abortion. A) I think it's a brilliant poem, and am pleased to run it for that reason alone; and b) I don't think that aborting a child out of sheer terror and sorrow for its imagined future makes anyone a bad person. As I've written elsewhere on this blog, I like to think it's not something I'd have done, if I'd known there was a problem. But I can't be 100% sure. Can you? Hats off if yes. Not everyone's that strong.

[G Street]

Did the mother abort this baby simply because it had Downs Syndrome ?

I have to admit that when I first learnt about this writing I was pretty annoyed. Until, that is, I thought that maybe the baby had already died ? Maybe the medical complications were really severe. The poem mentions in the 21st Stanza about having a line on the forehead that seperates the living from the dead. The writer has my utmost sympathy.

If it is a simple case of "baby aborted because of Down's" then it is wrong to promote this poem.

Parents are trying to show the world the potential of Down's Syndrome children. When I look at my daughter I see the personificiation of human potential, perseverance and concentration. All children have the potential to learn and enjoy life.

[Annabel]

I heard this poem on the radio as I was wrapping up a pass the parcel for my middle son's birthday party. It was 8 years to the day since he was born and we learned that he had Downs Syndrome. The poem was so bleak and sad; in total contrast to my happy mood getting ready for a house load of excited children!

I felt it was so tragic that Sian was so obviously still so devastated by her loss and so sad that both the poem and the interview implied that her loss was imposed on her, when in reality, it was chosen.

[David]

It's a beautiful poem, yes. And though I've never heard of the writer till now I'll certainly look out for her poems in future.

[Leah]

Oh my goodness, that should come with a warning. I sat here with great big fat hot tears plopping onto my keyboard. Extraordinary.