07 November 2020

Pain in Poems: Spike Milligan's Open Heart Surgey


 

Spike Milligan. Open Heart Surgery. (1979) A book published to cash in on the spike in Goon Show popularity in the 1970s/80s. A few of the verses are worth reading twice. Most are diary entries, of interest only to Spike and those who care about him. I like the Goon Show, and love Milligan’s off-kilter squint at the world. But these verses don’t do it for me. Reading them, I feel like a voyeur. The decorations by Laura Milligan relate to the companion verses in their expressions of similar hurts. *1/2

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My Heart is Broken (Gallant, 1957)

Mavis Gallant. My Heart Is Broken . (1957) Gallant’s second collection, not published in Canada until 1964.  The settings of her stories var...