My mother fractured her pelvis this past week. This poem about pain helps me empathize.
Tag Archives: Pain
And a Woman Said, “Tell Us of Pain”
Is Kahlil Gibran right in seeing pain as a road to enlightenment. Or is this just wish fulfillment?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Fiery Invalids Home from Hot kClimates, Kahlil Gibran, Prophet, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tom Robbins Comments closed
Now for Something Completely Different
Georgia O’Keefe This past week I seem to have taken as a challenge Elaine Scarry’s observation (in The Body in Pain) that representations of physical pain in literature are rare. Two more I add to the list are the Blake professor in Gail Godwin’s The Good Husband, who is dying of cancer, and Rosie, the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry, Gail Godwin, Good Husband, James Stephens, Leaps of Faith, Rachel Kranz, Shell Comments closed
Trusting that Good Can Come from Ill
Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus What have I learned about literature and pain this past week? First, that writers have taken up the topic, just as they take up every aspect of human existence. They imagine what it is like to feel pain and, through poetic images and fictional stories, convey that experience to readers. By entering […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Christopher Marlowe, death of a child, Death of Ivan Ilych, Doctor Faustus, Heart of Darkness, In Memoriam, John Milton, Joseph Conrad, Leo Tolstoy, Name of the Rose, Paradise Lost, Rachel Kranz, Suffering, Umberto Eco Comments closed
And a woman said, “Tell us of Pain”
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 […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged cancer, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, Kahlil Gibran, Prophet, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tom Robbins Comments closed
