The Bottom Line: Poet Susan King faces breast cancer and transforms her raw emotions into “vessels of words” which hold her terror, hope, and victory. She writes of changes in body and spirit, relationships with family and friends, facing “death’s hot, bad breath” and the blessing of recovery, with its small everyday pleasures. Nothing is omitted –- sex, breast prostheses, surgical scars, pain, loss and permanent change. This book makes fine reading late at night when fears resurface, or when you need the fellowship of survivors.
Pros:
- Vivid imagery, excelling at natural observation
- Each poem is short, but deep enough to read over again
- Rhythms which surprise and sometimes seem to happen naturally
Cons:
- A few poems are so personal that they are hard to understand
Poems of Experience and Survival: A poet faces breast cancer and transforms her raw emotions into “vessels of words” which hold her terror, hope, and victory. Survivors will recognize the stages of experience: Nigredo (shock and despair), Albedo (ups and downs of treatment, fellowship of patients), Rubedo (life in recovery and survival, haunted sometimes by fear of recurrence). King’s emotions and observations spill forth in modern verse, serving up the shock of diagnostic tests, surgery and its aftermath, and the loss of symmetry.
Nature and Love: She excels at observing nature and relating it to the cancer experience, and she rages at environmental imbalance. Clearest of all is her love of other people: patients, family members, massage therapists, a 9-year-old girl at a dance.
Exerpts From the Poems:
The One-Breasted Woman descends into despair and illness, awakens to purification and emergence, and rises in fulfillment and joy. She loses a breast to a mastectomy:
The One-Breasted Woman descends into despair and illness, awakens to purification and emergence, and rises in fulfillment and joy. She loses a breast to a mastectomy:
ASYMMETRY:
A piece of me, the softest, sweetest piece,
diseased, lopped off, I become
an inadvertent symbol of your
adoration of perfect surfaces
A piece of me, the softest, sweetest piece,
diseased, lopped off, I become
an inadvertent symbol of your
adoration of perfect surfaces
During chemotherapy, she faces feelings of impending death, terrible fatigue and fear of more bad news. But she also finds much to admire in other survivors and in nature. She learns to be selfish in a healthy way:
BEING MEAN:
Certain stringent measures are required
to regain and preserve your health.
Concentrate within you every healing energy.
Stare out the window. Sit with the cat in your lap.
Don’t lift a finger! Except maybe to doodle.
Certain stringent measures are required
to regain and preserve your health.
Concentrate within you every healing energy.
Stare out the window. Sit with the cat in your lap.
Don’t lift a finger! Except maybe to doodle.
Biography of a Lost Breast: The most endearing and gut-wrenching poem is a biography of her lost breast. Deceptively simple, it at first appears to be a laundry list of descriptive terms, but the rhythm that King establishes goes on through the discovery of breast cancer and treatment.
BREAST
Sprout stem bud flower
Crest swelling peaks the sea
Billow pillow nipple nuptial
Sun aureole bowl bell
One-Breasted Woman ends with tentative victory and acceptance: “I will take off the clothes of illusion,” observing the seasons change, deaths and births, and simple everyday celebrations.
Susan King was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy at age 51. She has been a Presbyterian minister, a psychotherapist, a writing teacher, and a poet. She has written two other poetry books, and currently leads retreats on creativity and spirituality. King and her husband have grown twin daughters.
Jane Norling created the cover art as oil pastel on canvas. Although primarily known for her landscape and abstract paintings, she also creates clear, insightful images of people. Norling is herself a breast cancer survivor.
BREAST
Sprout stem bud flower
Crest swelling peaks the sea
Billow pillow nipple nuptial
Sun aureole bowl bell
One-Breasted Woman ends with tentative victory and acceptance: “I will take off the clothes of illusion,” observing the seasons change, deaths and births, and simple everyday celebrations.
About the author:
Susan King was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy at age 51. She has been a Presbyterian minister, a psychotherapist, a writing teacher, and a poet. She has written two other poetry books, and currently leads retreats on creativity and spirituality. King and her husband have grown twin daughters.
About the artist:
Jane Norling created the cover art as oil pastel on canvas. Although primarily known for her landscape and abstract paintings, she also creates clear, insightful images of people. Norling is herself a breast cancer survivor.
