Someone I love very dearly has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I turn to “Sonny’s Blues” and “King Lear” to find adequate words.
Tag Archives: cancer
Seeing the Beauty in an Invalid
As I sat by the hospital bed of a dear friend holding her hand, the well-known opening lines from Auden’s “Lullaby” came to mind:
Lucille Clifton’s Cancer Poems
In her 1980s cancer poems, Lucille Clifton captures a range of feelings, ranging from confusion to anger to acceptance.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alice in Wonderland, cancer poems, hospitals, Lewis Carroll, Lucille Clifton, Medicine Comments closed
Women Who Refuse To Be Broken
There are certain poets who appear indomitable and, in their confident affirmations of life, inspire the rest of us. Lucille Clifton was one of these poets.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "won't you celebrate with me", Adversity, Lucille Clifton, Rachel Kranz, sickness Comments closed
Trapped in an Emergency Room
When a friend found herself suddenly trapped in a large metropolitan emergency room, Nabokov’s short story “Cloud, Castle, Lake” came to mind. It’s about a man who wants to leave travel tour and is prevented.
Clifton Poems Make Connection Possible
In a recent event honoring the memory of Lucille Clifton, poet Toi Derricotte read a poem about how Clifton’s poetry opened up a relationship with the mother of a sick child. Here I share Derricotte’s poem as well as the poems she read to the mother and examine why they had the effect they did.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I was born with twelve fingers", "in the inner city", Illness, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte Comments closed
A Cancer Patient Reads “The Bacchae”
One of my students, suffering from cancer, has an exciting interpretation of Euripides’ “The Bacchae.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bacchae, conservatism, Euripides, liberalism, teaching Comments closed
