The poetry of JPoet

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The poetry of JPoet

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The poetry of JPoet A fantastic site has been set up for JPoet’s poetry and her personal dealings with cancer. lovegrove.f9.co.uk/JPoet/

It’s very powerful stuff, a quote from the introduction.

"This is the story of the journey through the “cancer experience” of one woman, Sandra Lovegrove, as put together by me, her husband Roger. It is told principally through her poetry, written under the pseudonym “JPoet”, and emails as written at the time. It is not a happy tale, but it is a truthful tale.

Sandra’s view was that is too easy to write about the cancer experience in a very positive way, full of reassurance and platitudes. Indeed, there seems to be a philosophy in some quarters that this is the only way to write, and that to describe the situation in any other way is to be avoided as being too dispiriting. But this can make patients feel isolated and exceptional because their experiences and feelings do not match what they are reading or hearing. It can also mislead non-sufferers, especially carers and family, into not fully understanding what having cancer can be like; what it feels like, not just physically but also emotionally."

There is a guest book to record your feelings on this site. Tomorrow it will be exactly 3 months since she died and Roger wanted to ensure that I have posted this link to the forums by then.

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Thankyou Dear Roberta
Thankyou so much for letting us know of this site. I, for one, will definitely have a read.
I often miss jpoet’s view on things.
Hope you’re doing ok.
With love
Kitkat

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Thanks so much, Roberta I too miss JPoet and have just spent a rewarding half-hour reading some of the material on this new site. I will definitely bookmark it and return to her poems again and again.

Kathy xxx

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Thanks Roberta Thanks for the link - like others I miss jpoet’s take on things and in particular that the ‘positive’ approach to cancer misleads the public and denies the negative thoughts and feelings that we all have at times.

Kate

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Thank you, Roberta, for bringing this to our attention.

Sandra was fortunate in having such a loyal friend as you.

Take care.

Mcgle

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I will be visiting someone yesterday told me I’d live longer if I thought positively. To me it’s a disease and thinking one way or another isn’t necessary.
To thine own self be true

Mole

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Hi Mole Great to see you posting again - I just love your iclonocic view on life. I suggest you get new friends, or acquaintances, if they talk so negatively! We all know what we are dealing with and we certainly don’t need folks who can tell grandmas to suck eggs.

You rock Mole.
love, from Liz, who is facing a recurrence - meeting the original bc surgeon next Thursday - not going to be railroaded into another dose of chemo and “adult diapers” this time round, with my Crohn’s I am going to ask for peer reviews at the Royal Marsden and Christies in Manchester as well as the IBD hospital at St. Marks in Harrow.
Guess I am getting it together, with the help of this site.
Love. Liz.

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good luck Lizzie I hope the adult diapers don’t turn out to be true

Mole

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important poems Hi
I have just read the poems and they really need to be published. I too am fed up of being told to be positive when some days I just am not. I have been looking for poems like these who tell it like it is, the reality of feelings and to be able to verbalise how I feel to family and friends and these are important pieces of work. They really need to be published so that a wider audience can experience them and medical staff certainly need to read them.
regards
kay

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I agree Kay I think Sandra’s poems are magnificent and deserve a wide audience.

I am glad that cancer in general (and breast cancer in particular) is no longer spoken of in the hushed whispers of the early and middle parts of the 20th century. But I think we have exhanged one kind of silence for another…just as insidious…its a silence where to speak of the hard and terrible side of cancer is to somehow ‘let the side down’. ‘Thinking positive’ has become a meaningless mantra which distorts the awfulness of cancer. Far too many people die of cancer…far too many women die of breast cancer, many like Sandra, within a short time of diagnosis. Yes it is important to live with hope but with a hope born of realism not of empty platitude.

Sandra spoke honestly, openly and fully of the horrors of her experience…she had an extraordinary capacity to use language to describe the most terrifying of feelings…

I ‘knew’ jp and jpoet through these forums and looked forward to her forthright posts. I met Sandra in person once and have good memories of a wet afternoon in Epping Forest . I think Sandra’s husband writes very movingly of the woman he knew and loved…an outspoken woman with a tremendous laugh and sharp wit…I glimpsed that woman along with the serious poet and feel privileged to have known her…albeit so briefly.

Jane