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 […]
Tag Archives: cancer
Can We Imagine Another’s Pain?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Body in Pain, Book of Showings, D. H. Lawrence, Death of Ivan Ilych, Elaine Scarry, Julian of Norwich, Leo Tolstoy, Midsummer Night's Dream, Sons and Lovers, Suffering Comments closed
Death and Language’s Limitations
In spending the last two weeks discussing how poetry can come to our aid in a season of death, I have been exploring how poetry responds to its greatest test. Death and dying can trigger our deepest fears, generate panic, denial and anger, prompt us to question everything we believe in, and send on frantic […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged A. H. Tennyson, death of a child, Gail Godwin, In Memoriam, The Good Husband Comments closed
