Summary:
The
collection is prefaced and named for a poem by Walt Whitman, The Wound Dresser,
annotated in this database by Jack Coulehan. In “On Reading Walt Whitman’s ‘The Wound Dresser’” Coulehan sees Whitman as a nurse
tending the Civil War wounded, and, while using some of the words and language
of Whitman’s poem, imagines himself moving forward in that created space of
caring for patients: “You remain / tinkering at your soldier’s side, as I step
/ to the next cot and the cot after that.” (p. ix) The poem introduces us to
all the ‘cots’ of the book – where we step from patient to patient, through
history and geography, and through the journey of medical training.
The
book is comprised of 4 sections without overt explanation, although there are 4
pages of Notes at the end of the book with information about select individual
poems. In general, the themes of the sections can be described as: 1.) clinical
care of individual patients and medical training; 2.) reflections on historical
medical cases, reported anecdotes or past literary references; 3.) meditations
on geographically distinct episodes – either places of travel or news items;
and 4.) family memoir, personal history and the passage of time.
Many
of the poems have been previously published and a few are revised from an
earlier chapbook. Notable among the latter is “McGonigle’s Foot” (pp 42-3) from
section 2, wherein an event in Philadelphia, 1862 – well after the successful
public demonstration of anesthesia was reported and the practice widely
disseminated, a drunk Irishman was deemed unworthy of receiving an anesthetic.
Although it is easy to look back and critique past prejudices, Coulehan’s poem
teaches us to examine current prejudices, bias and discrimination in the
provision of healthcare choices, pain relief and access to care.
There
are many gems in these 72 poems. Coulehan has an acute sensibility about the
variety of human conditions he has the privilege to encounter in medical
training and clinical practice. However, one of the standouts for me was “Cesium
137” based on a news report of children finding an abandoned radiotherapy
source (cesium) in Goiania Brazil, playing with the glowing find and suffering
acute radiation poisoning. He writes: “the cairn of their small lives / burst
open…their bodies vacillate and weaken / hour by hour, consumed by innocence /
and radiant desire.” (p. 68).
Following
another poem inspired by Whitman, Coulehan concludes the collection with a
sonnet “Retrospective.” He chronicles a 40-year career along with physical
aging, memories of medical training “etched in myelin,” and the search for
connection across that span of career including, “those he hurt, the woman / he
killed with morphine, more than a few he saved.” Ultimately, he relies on hope
with fitting understatement: “His ally, hope, will have to do.” (p. 97)
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