Tim Nolan

“I was in a hospital bed. My back ached. Early in the morning of the previous night, I had been stabbed in an unprovoked attack by a total stranger outside a hotel bar in downtown Calgary. I was seventeen. My attacker was seventeen. We were both Irish-Americans. The newspaper is very matter-of-fact.”

This essay is a short attempt to tell the story of a stabbing that occurred in July 1972 when I was seventeen years old. I hope it works as a combination of personal memory and poetry. I am primarily a poet, but once in a while I attempt something in prose.