'It’s 1972 in Canberra. Michael Dransfield is being treated for a drug addiction; Paula Keogh is delusional and grief-stricken. They meet in a psychiatric unit of the Canberra Hospital and instantly fall in love.
'Paula recovers a self that she thought was lost; Michael, a radical poet, is caught up in a rush of creative energy and writes poems that become The Second Month of Spring. Together, they plan for ‘a wedding, marriage, kids – the whole trip’. But outside the hospital walls, madness, grief and drugs challenge their luminous dream. Can their love survive?
'The Green Bell is a lyrical and profoundly moving story about love and madness. It explores the ways that extreme experience can change us: expose our terrors and open us to ecstasy for the sake of a truer life, a reconciliation with who we are. Ultimately, the memoir reveals itself to be a hymn to life. A requiem for lost friends. A coming of age story that takes a lifetime.' (Publication summary)
'I was attracted to The Green Bell by the part that the poet Michael Dransfield has in it. He was a symbolic figure of the 1960s, representing the Dionysian and Bacchanal as against the ordered classical world of my studies and faith, with his raw and needlestrewn life and poetry and his photograph in a Franciscan cowl.' (Introduction)
'Big questions lie at the heart of The Green Bell. What is love? Madness? Poetry? Are there boundaries? The focus is on Paula Keogh’s intense relationship with poet Michael Dransfield when they meet in M Ward, the psychiatric ward of Canberra Community Hospital, in 1972.
Keogh was admitted after a breakdown following the death of her best friend Julianne, but with Dransfield’s arrival in M Ward their story takes flight. ‘‘His eyes are teasing’’ as he smiles at her. They bond with wordplay and poetry and find refuge nearby under the green bell of a willow by the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.' (Introduction)
'I was attracted to The Green Bell by the part that the poet Michael Dransfield has in it. He was a symbolic figure of the 1960s, representing the Dionysian and Bacchanal as against the ordered classical world of my studies and faith, with his raw and needlestrewn life and poetry and his photograph in a Franciscan cowl.' (Introduction)
'Big questions lie at the heart of The Green Bell. What is love? Madness? Poetry? Are there boundaries? The focus is on Paula Keogh’s intense relationship with poet Michael Dransfield when they meet in M Ward, the psychiatric ward of Canberra Community Hospital, in 1972.
Keogh was admitted after a breakdown following the death of her best friend Julianne, but with Dransfield’s arrival in M Ward their story takes flight. ‘‘His eyes are teasing’’ as he smiles at her. They bond with wordplay and poetry and find refuge nearby under the green bell of a willow by the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.' (Introduction)
