CN: Lobotomy
Janet Frame was a New Zealand author and poet. In 1951, after years of psychiatric hospitalisation, her début publication of short stories was unexpectedly awarded a national literary prize. Her planned lobotomisation, due to take place only a few days later, was subsequently cancelled.
Her poem ‘The Icicles’ was published posthumously in 2006.
The icicles never did give way,
did they?
The clock struck ten
And the men
In white coats
Consulted their notes
And the scalpel
froze
Suspended
by sentences.
Sharp and crystalline
Clear
You cut through
The air
And they all looked
Up at the eaves
Where they’d never looked
Before and realised
that the freezing
rivulet serpentine
slither under their
ice white shirt-collar
was not melt-water
but guilt.
We have enough money
To cryogenically preserve
Genius, you see.
God Forbid you be
Fragile without also being
glassy and bright
in the light of the
New Zealand sun.
We liquidate sick women,
but we know how
Important it is
to accumulate
assets like icicles.
By Imogen Shaw
Blueprint 