Denise  Bundred was a consultant paediatric cardiologist and has an MA in Creative Writing. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Her pamphlet, Litany of a Cardiologist, was published by Against the Grain Press in 2020. She won the Hippocrates Prize in 2016 and come second in 2019. Her Poems poems have appeared Hippocrates Prize Anthologies, The Book of Love and Loss and These are the Hands.Her poems have also appeared in Envoi, Under the Radar, Poetry Shed, Prole Poetry, London Grip and Magma.

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Denise Bundred: Four Poems on Van Gogh

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BANDAGED EAR
Dr Felix Rey, Arles. January 1889

His ear was cleanly severed, apart from a remnant of the lobe —
a strange razor-cut for self-harm if it was as he said.
He fought with Gauguin; that much I knew.

I cleaned and stitched as well as I could.
Inexperience counted…