What the Body Told
A reflective essay collection by a doctor and poet that explores the intersections of medicine, poetry, care, and desire. It reconsiders how language works around healing.
Work Information
From the space between medicine and poetry, it rethinks the meaning of body and care.
A Lambda Literary Award-winning work that layers the experience of caring for patients with the act of writing, quietly probing the relationship between body, language, and care.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Duke Univ Pr
- Published
- 1996-04-01
- Pages
- 122 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.36 x 1.65 x 23.83 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780822317333
- ISBN-10
- 0822317338
- Price
- 19578 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/American
What the Body Told is the second book of poetry from Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, a gay Cuban American, and winner of the National Poetry Series 1993 Open Competition. Exploring the themes begun in his first book, The Other Man Was Me , Campo extends the search for identity into new realms of fantasy and physicality. He travels inwardly to the most intimate spaces of the imagination where sexuality and gender collide and where life crosses into death. Whether facing a frenetic hospital emergency room to assess a patient critically ill with AIDS, or breathing in the quiet of his mother&;s closet, Campo proposes with these poems an alternative means of healing and exposes the extent to which words themselves may be the most vital working parts of our bodies. The secret truths in What the Body Told , as the title implies, are already within each of us; in these vivid and provocative poems, Rafael Campo gives them a voice. Lost in the Hospital It&;s not that I don&;t like the hospital. Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave. The smell of antiseptic cleansers. The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true. My friend, the one who&;s dying, took me out To where the patients go to smoke, IV&;s And oxygen tanks attached to them&; A tiny patio for skeletons. We shared A cigaratte, which was delicious but Too brief. I held his hand; it felt Like someone&;s keys. How beautiful it was, The sunlight pointing down at us, as if We were important, full of life, unbound. I wandered for a moment where his ribs Had made a space for me, and there, beside The thundering waterfall of is heart, I rubbed my eyes and thought &;I&;m lost.&;
Rafael Campo is Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Author of The Other Man Was Me , he is a PEN Center West and Lambda Literary Award finalist. His poems have appeared in many publications, including The Kenyon Review , Parnassus , The Nation , Ploughshares , and Best American Poetry/1995 .
Reviews
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Modern poetry, great for the college student to read, or to share with friends.
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Great collection of poetry! Was in very nice condition.
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I needed the book for class. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I will have to. The condition is fine, no pages are missing that I could see.