So, the above title belongs to a subscription-only article based on an essay about the unavoidable mentioning of my whole cardiac debacle in the context of Her Red Songs (my new book). I am not mad about talking about it, to the extent that a few people knew anything at all, it seems. However, these things impact our creative lives, and they leave their mark not alone on the body, but on the book. It has left its mark on my book, from title change, dedication, the creation of the index to the final poems chosen. That is why I wrote the essay, it is unavoidable. 

The fact of it is that the book changed a lot from the time of its acceptance and contract in 2022 to the one published in 2024 and the reasons for these changes are written here, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/03/15/how-rewriting-my-poetry-collection-after-a-heart-attack-helped-my-recovery/?fbclid=IwAR2HckheRJSBGUW_6UVQ_-NJCj2DoJunBkqCAHFf0HeJBQ0FyC_-XC3_DEM (Irish Times, books)

If you can’t access the above subscription article, I put an earlier version of the above essay in my Internet Archive account here, https://archive.org/details/on-her-red-songs

And for those people who like things that cannot be found elsewhere, there are three well-read electronic chapbooks at a similar address here,

Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@christine-elizabeth