Richard Bell Richard Bell i(A7788 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 y separately published work icon The Presence of Absence Richard Bell , Port Adelaide : Ginninderra Press , 2022 25498063 2022 selected work poetry

'"In this sequence of poems, accomplished poet Richard Bell pays homage to his wife of many years, who died of cancer. In doing so, he explores the process of grieving, finding it to be inseparable from memory and, ultimately, from love. Memories and feelings both have a kind of autonomy; they surface unpredictably, according to their own rhythms; they are not in the control of the poet, who observes, suffers, recalls and threads lines together. Yet while they are partially detached from the poet's will, memories and feelings inform a new sense of identity. Inevitably, this involves a radically altered sense of time: time has become newly precious, since a central relationship has been curtailed by it, yet that relationship continues timelessly. Just as the emotional effect of the book is more than the sum of its poem parts, so the sustained love of the poet's life is discovered to be more than his own feelings and memories and the sense of a shared life: 'There is a you and me/that goes beyond/what is' ('Grief is just another feeling'). Indeed, one of the book's great strengths is the portrayal of the lively personality of the poet's wife - her nervousness, good humour, wit and joie de vivre. Many of the poems address her, bringing the realisation that the poet alone is now the repository of shared memories: 'Just drying my hands/on your towel: I am you now/and you can be me' ('Seven Senryū'). The repeated sense of absence gives rise to a new set of relations, marked by new permissions, such as the interpolation of Richard's recollections in poetry into the young Sue's diary. Powerful physical attraction dominates, poignantly, yet in the end the couple cannot be separated: 'I am as much of you/as I am of me. Thanks./R.' ('Gratitude'). These are poems not only for the bereaved but for anyone who has ever loved." - Carolyn Masel, author of Moorings' (Publication summary)

1 Bushfires i "The Glenbrook fires have long gone.", Richard Bell , 2019 single work poetry
— Appears in: Mountain Secrets 2019; (p. 46)
1 y separately published work icon Such Sweet Sorrow Richard Bell , Port Adelaide : Ginninderra Press , 2019 15525780 2019 selected work poetry

'‘With this moving free verse arising from his sustained encounter with his wife’s cancer, Richard Bell lays bare the intimate reality of loss, from its dark foreshadowing in her fatal diagnosis through the rigors of her treatment to the persistence of her presence even in the yawning absence that followed her death. In raw honesty and occasional buffering irony, with unconventional images that startle the reader into fresh acts of perception, this poetry illuminates an intimate journey that touched me with both its universality for all mortal beings and with the ultimate particularity that distinguishes each shared life from all others. I recommend it to all of those who stand in the shadow of loss, as well as to readers who seek a deeper understanding of those who do.’ - Robert A. Neimeyer, author of Techniques of Grief TherapyThe Art of Longing, and Rainbow in the Stone'  (Publication summary)

1 Silver Mysteries Richard Bell , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 242 2002; (p. 43-44)

— Review of Patrick White and Alchemy James Bulman-May , 2001 single work criticism
1 Low-Degree Perspicacity Richard Bell , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , July-August vol. 40 no. 7-8 1996; (p. 88-89)

— Review of Patrick White Simon During , 1996 single work criticism
1 Untitled i "Portrait", Richard Bell , 1979 single work poetry
— Appears in: Westerly , March vol. 24 no. 1 1979; (p. 54)
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