Broken Syntax

ISBN: 978-1-84747-3950
Published: 2007
Pages: 64
Key Themes: manic depression, bi-polar disorder, hospitalisation, recovery, poetry

Description

'Broken Syntax' was written over a period of a year and a half, after a lengthy hospitalisation. It carries the seeds of rebirth, yet also the melancholy of what most are never meant to see. The writing is deceptively simple and unsophisticated, allowing words to achieve their fullest impact. Divided into two parts, 'Broken Syntax' possesses the hallmark of an “unquiet mind”. In the first part, “Fractures”, the changes of seasons, the beauty of nature, the biting pain of human indifference, are described with bittersweet lyricism. “Love in, Love out”, the second part, is a reflection on ever-changing love, tragic or ridiculous, violent or tender, where hope can be shattered but forgiveness ultimately triumphs.

About the Author

Laura Hargrove Schneilin is a young Franco-American woman, presently living and working in Paris, who has spent time in London and lived several years in the United States. Her mother is a painter, and her father a famous French academic. She attended various schools, including Princeton University, the School of Oriental Languages and the Sorbonne, where she obtained a Masters degree and an agregation in English. She is now working as a teacher in various secondary schools in the Paris area, and has been lecturing in American and British literature at the Sorbonne for the past seven years. She is also working on a PhD in Renaissance Studies. Though her work and studies have often been interrupted by debilitating bouts of manic depressive illness, she has always continued to write, which she feels is her true calling. She is currently working on a novel and collection of stories in English, and a collection of short stories in French, which she hopes to finish in 2007.

Book Extract

A Smile in the Shadow

In the beginning
Came the smile
And the smile and
The Eyes
Were within mine
Then the smile faded
And I was emptied
And ripped apart
And a big gap
Is now my mouth
Still standing
Where the eyes
Used to smile.

Clockwork

If I could think
Louder than the words
That go tick tick
Through the heart
I could find the time
In the body in the bones
To watch an hour
Maybe grow
Grow slowly fearlessly.

Disjointed

A mess of words
Four by four
Grapple to find
Meaning in sound.
They are lost now
When
The mind falters
But left to grow
Alone
When thought and sinews
Rejoin and recoup.

God’s Own Sewing

Is it too late
To mend
A broken heart?
Heart broken
By time too heavy
To bear alone
By moments too clear
To see in the light
And by feelings frozen

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