She Dreamed of a Common Language

Sorry, didn't realize we don't have class this Wednesday, so I guess you'll have time to write your poem about a part of the body, to look up simile, metaphor and other figurative language AND to read about a very famous poet who died this week, Adrienne Rich.  Here's an article from The New York Times, about her life.  This other article from The Nation, should also be read and contains five of her poems. See if you can find the figurative language in ADRIENNE RICH's poems, and in each others'.  See you Wednesday, April 11.

Sonic Warfare

The clock strikes 6 PM

And the troops begin to assemble

They are pouring in

From every direction

And they don’t seem to be stopping

I am easily outnumbered

3,000 to 1

Right in the middle of it all

Surrounded by these blood thirsty men

It’s pitch black,

I can’t even move a muscle,

I might as well be in a coffin

The battlefield is hot and sticky

It’s not a jungle

But I’m drenched,

Beads of sweat rolling down my back

Saturating my uniform

All of a sudden

A Flash!

And Another!

And Another!

It’s a strobe!

It’s a laser!

The frequency is deadly

The troops go wild

Every single one

Screaming their battle cry

This can only get worse

A new group of soldiers appear

Holding these awesome weapons

Using them as if they had been trained for years,

They fire shot after shot

Penetrating my forehead

With sounds

Beautiful sounds

The vibrations begin to build

Enveloping me

Traveling through my boots,

All the way up my body,

And reverberating in my helmet

The hole in my forehead gets wider

And the pressure begins to build

I have to go

I cannot fight anymore

My cause is not worth this pain

My body cannot withstand it

I try to flee

But the soldiers won’t allow it

Impeding my retreat

At every step

I worry I will never escape

I make it through eventually

But this offers little resolve

For like any war,

The wounds outlast the battle

Vindaloo

You all stare as my vision blurs

With the sting of sour tears purging

my self-conscious self

of these Staph aureus

Toxins retching forth,

And even through the musculoskeletal spasms,

my back feels all the eyes that weigh like

Thick metal coins buying my worth

But as you judge the unholy glowing orange sin

that spews from me-

the sweetest acid I’ve ever tasted-

My blood soaked eyes bulge upward

and see

The same tints filling the sky

As the sun cascades down

With the same hues of bright yellow and red

As the Vindaloo

Soaking the bottom of this trashcan.

And suddenly, my neon pathology feels

as natural as the rays

that bathe you and me.

And now,

I will proceed to

vomit as loudly as I can,

because it’s a such beautiful day to be sick

In front of you all.

lost

dizzy, spinning
can’t breathe, can’t think
next to a silent stranger
stranger yet screams in the night
that fill me with fright
days that blur with fever
3 days of my life lost

fever-memory

like the last inch of candle’s wick,

fever casts a smoky yellow glow

to the tumbled sheets

(kicked off, pulled over),

to the face in the mirror

cheeks flushed orange.

i know the taste of sliced apple

but fever paints it offensive

its sweetness heavy as the musk

of a urine soaked public toilet

its coolness extracting a shudder and a fit of goosebumps

Release

The clearest of the songbirds hymns should rise above the flu-
A fainted air, a grayish tone, faded from agate blue;
Though in the depths of fever pray the warbler's song to rise,
And hide not in the restless dream, cloaked in boggy disguise.

The sluggish mind bemoans itself, it drags on through the night;
A sickly, rasping whisper, a peeling paint of mottled white;
A dented mental state, the pebble caught within the shoe;
The stupid, endless languor trudging through the foggy hue.

Take favored melodies that echo from their sylvoid home,
Past glass of bedroom window, covers, blanket, from the dawn;
For waking from a slumber that provides so little rest,
May serve release from nightmare into their bucolic nest.

"No Fizz" by Marjan Islam

The absence of sound, a warning.

Though the color the same, deceiving.

The consistency? The viscosity?

Thoughts far away from a mind,

So focused on my parched tongue

Down it went, a trick played by no one

The drink being drunk, but not a drink at all!

But oil.

Black as the ocean, deceptive in its calm

A Trojan horse, lured within

One gulp, and I knew

Yet three gulps I took

Not fast enough, to overthrow the greedy tongue

That demanded it quenched

I fell to the floor

curled in the calamity that claimed my core

The oil, churning within,

Settling in, its new home,

The invited guest, now uninvited

Rescinded, in its welcome

By the house, so sure in revolt

A violent revolt

Emesis. 

Ill-treated

I have known her all my life

She keeps me safe,

Protected

But today, she's lost her way

I am in pain and

She is distant, unfamiliar

Like a stranger--

Unforgiving, unrelenting

With her blows she sends me falling

To the ground

It is for my own good

She knows best, she says

And I am powerless

Unprotected

She has known me all my life

I must trust her, I have no choice

Powerless, unprotected

Her hand covers my mouth 

And stifles my pleas

I can no longer fight

But her wretched hand

Strikes me once more

Now the worst as passed

She has found her way back

To me

She keeps me safe,

Protected

For now

Ball and chain

Any injuries, operations, hospitalizations?
They always asked.
A response filled with pride.
As if it was something to be proud of,
As if it wasn't just luck.

Day in and day out in the same damn room,
With this ball and chain
I can barely move.
Inhaling my exhales,
Heightening the contamination.
My youth has made me age
Years in seconds.

These metal sticks under my armpits
Have replaced you, Mr. Knee.
This grotesque black brace
Has surely taken your place.

Avoid eye contact.
Avoid it if you can.
Avoid the pity talk about him.
Avoid courtesy for courtesy's sake.
Avoid it by all means.

It's true,
You two have kept me moving.
But you,
You were too frail, you didn't go far.
And you expect me to consult you
Before using your counterpart?
Don't you forget, I am carrying you
You quit carrying me.

Numb

The mind does not take care
of the body,
nor does the body the mind.

In constant quarrel to untangle
two parallel worlds of
sound and light.

There is not enough of me,
to feel

But from the tips of
dulled sensations,

I can see the world outside
is vibrant.

Poems About The Body

Great job today, everyone.  I hope you enjoyed reading and discussing Sylvia Plath's Fever 103.  Here are three poets who have written about the body.  Read them (and we will read them again in class), and check the sidebar for a prompt for your writing assignment this week.  Remember to post early and often, to give us all a chance to read and comment on your work before the next Wednesday...

• Her my body, by Bob Hicok
• Mastectomy, by Wanda Coleman
• Large Intestine, by Anna Swir

Thanks again for a great class today.  See you next week.

Welcome, Class of 2014!

Welcome to the Team Blog for the MCS2 Literature and Medicine: Poetry Selective for the Class of 2014. I hope to post assignments, comments on our class and other resources for you here. I have configured this blog that you each are authors who may post any of your thoughts as well -- a shared journal as such. If there is any interest in writing poetry, we can also use this space to "workshop" poems, posting work and letting each other comment on it.

On Wednesday, March 21, we will be looking at Sylvia Plath's poem Fever 103. You can find it on the Poetry Foundation website, and a biography of the poet by clicking here. You may post your thoughts by clicking "comments" below, by posting a separate entry on this blog, or by bringing any thoughts with you to class. Read it a couple of times, look up any words with which you may not be familiar, and think about the metaphors and images Plath uses to describe the intensity of her experience. What words does she use and how does she use them to make this such a powerful statement?

The word "verse" comes from a Latin verb meaning "to turn" (as in versus, and reverse). Now it's your turn, and this is your space. Thank you for allowing the study of humanities, literature, and poetry a turn in your medical education.