Monthly Archives: October 2009

And a woman said, “Tell us of Pain”

By Robin Bates | Published: October 6, 2009

Here’s a poem that deals directly with pain, from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.  I don’t entirely understand it but I’m intrigued by some of its claims: “And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.” And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of […]

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Can We Imagine Another’s Pain?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 5, 2009

In Friday’s post I mentioned how we read and discussed the first few pages of Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World in our most recent salon, held to support colleague Alan Paskow as he battles with cancer.  Scarry claims that language is inadequate when it comes to physical pain so […]

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Perpetual Migraines and Julian of Norwich

By Robin Bates | Published: October 2, 2009

This is the first of a series of posts I will be writing on literature and pain.  There are a couple of reasons why I write about this now.  First, in last night’s salon in honor of my cancer-stricken friend Alan Paskow, we discussed the introduction to Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making […]

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Playing Cards in Rape of the Lock

By Robin Bates | Published: October 1, 2009

The rules for ombre and how the hands are played in “Rape of the Lock.” Altogether brilliant.

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