Written by David Donnison, 2011.

in memoriam Kay Carmichael raising funds for Freedom from Torture.

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“If you have the amazing good fortune to share your life for thirty years with a woman with whom you have a total, passionate comradeship – loving, professional, aesthetic, political – her death is a catastrophe like nothing else you have experienced.  Although you know well that many others have to survive loss of this kind, creating a new life – a new identity – is a lonely task. I felt I had to put down words that would help me find my way through this vale of tears. And, although I had not written serious poems before, it was poetry I needed, for its economy, its passion, and the access it gave to what I might call my soul – if I believed in souls. It was much later, after sharing some of these poems with friends who urged me to keep writing and eventually to publish them, that this small book took shape: one man’s journal of grief. I hope it may help others making similar journeys; and perhaps encourage them to put down words of their own in whatever way best meets their needs.” 

Reviews of Requiem

on the freedom from torture website

from the Lapidus Journal