This collection of twenty poems was put together over a period of three years, 2012-2015. Thanks are due to the charity United Response, whose community of staff and clientele gave unstinting help both in the putting together of the material and in launching and exhibiting the collection in Bristol. I also want to mention my late sister Kim, here. She had Down’s Syndrome and died in 2012, aged 59. I have put this collection together in her memory as my tribute to her and all she gave. But while her name is mentioned in quite a lot of the material that makes up the collection, I think its application belongs far wider that just one person and one family’s experience.
The poems have come from three main sources : a rather wonderful project called “Postcards from the Edges” run by United Response, which invites its members to deliver their thoughts on postcards, for posting up online ; a day I spent visiting a United Response community project in York, observing and talking to people ; and my own experience and witness as Kim’s brother. The author of “A Father to his son” is a friend of mine. He is the father of someone who has Down’s Syndrome.
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