The Literature

Pollycove, Morton (H. J. Van Peenen)

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Coulehan, Jack

Date of entry: Dec-02-1997

Summary

This is a collection of humorous and insightful verse inspired by scientific articles published in medical journals, such as Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. Pollycove is a "literary persona" who practiced internal medicine in rural Iowa for 30 years and "died from an acute coronary occlusion in October, 1990." This, according to the Introduction written by Pollycove's alter-ego, H. J. Van Peenen, an internist and pathologist who retired from academic pathology in 1990 and the publisher of this collection. Excerpts from the original articles alternate in the book with the poems that they inspired. The Literature is available from Goatfoot Press, 3910 Courtney Lane S.E., Salem, Oregon 97302.

Commentary

Among the most enjoyable of these poems are: "A Villanelle for Nitrogen Dioxide," "A Caution," "Now As Then," "A Bardic Chant for the Major Drugs," "The Perfect Figure," "A Pleasant Passage," and "Who Was Here First?" The poem "Trichtotillomania" (based on a letter to the editor of the New England Journal about an article called "A double blind comparison of clomipramine and desipramine in the treatment of trichtotillomania) concludes: "So it should be possible / with suitable doses / of uptake inhibitors, / to treat with a single drug bulimia, poetry and any other / maladaptive / striving for excellence."

Publisher

Goatfoot

Place Published

Salem, Oreg.

Edition

1992