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Annotated by:
- McEntyre, Marilyn
- Date of entry: Sep-20-2005
- Last revised: Dec-14-2006
Summary
This collection by a physician-poet covers a wide spectrum in topic and tone. The poems in the first of the four sections speak in voices of those waiting surgical outcomes, those whose loved ones are about to undergo invasive and dangerous procedures, those who are coming to terms (partly clinical terms) with death. The poems in the second section focus more explicitly on Jewish experience, and on experiences of suffering that take place in the wider context of biblical tradition and recent history.
The third section features lighter-hearted poems, many rhymed, that make playful reference to moments in domestic life and relationship which, while not free of suffering and anxiety, are also the stuff of laughter. The fourth focuses on love--erotic, romantic, familial--and death, which includes the ordinary losses that living through time entails. Elegiac, wistful, musing, and poignant, they end the collection in a complex, sustained key that holds an elegant tension between sorrow and hope.
Publisher
Mellen Poetry Press
Place Published
Lewiston, N.Y.
Edition
1998
Page Count
78
Commentary