Tag Archives: Illness

Wheezles and Sneezles

Like my literary namesake, I’ve had wheezles and sneezles for the past five days.

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Where Are the Toys of Yesteryear?

Where are the toys of yesteryear? Such is the lament of this poem by Scott Bates.

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God Does Not Leave Us Comfortless

As my father struggles to retain his memory, I think of Jonathan Swift.

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My Father in the Hospital

A Mary Oliver poems captures my fears about my father, currently hospitalized.

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A Bulimic Sees Herself in Milton’s Satan

One of my students who suffers from bulimia finds her condition mirrored in Satan’s rebellion against God.

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When You’re Sick, Call the Musketeers

I seldom get sick but, when I do, I become a wimp. Generally my illnesses take the form of stabbing sinus pain, and I retreat into a cocoon of misery and imagine myself about to die. As is appropriate for my melodramatic self pity, my mind invariably fixates upon a literary scene composed during France’s […]

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Swollen Hemingways? See a Doctorow

Terence Winch    As we move into the flu season, here’s a fun poem that can speak to our anxieties about the H1N1 virus.  It imagines a whole host of literary stalwarts involved in the illness.  The poem is by the Irish American poet Terence Winch.  Thanks to my father Scott Bates, himself a wonderful writer […]

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