After a Short Illness is John Whitehouse's meditation on aphasia, written from the aftermath of a stroke that almost severed his speech. The poems work in short, image-dense stanzas that measure the distance between talk and utterance, moving between hospital wards, a brother's death, and the task of giving names to animals. Whitehouse finds company among others estranged from language, Zazetsky writing his way back from a head wound and Baudelaire silenced in an asylum, and what accumulates is less lament than an account of language repossessed word by word.
 
ABOUT John Whitehouse:
John Whitehouse is a retired academic, living in London. He suffers from aphasia after a major stroke, which affects him with comprehension, and short-term memory. His work has been recommended by the Bridport Prize, and shortlisted by Templar Poetry. His other work  has been in: Interpreters’ House, Acumen, Frogmore Papers, London Grip, Snakeskin, Stand, and various poetry anthologies. He received an Arts Council Grant in 2023, and A Distant Englishness, was published in 2024.