Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
Books: The Sunday Poem - No. 59 Susan Wicks Each week Ruth Padel discusses a contemporary poet through an example of their work
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
Books: The Sunday Poem - No. 59 Susan Wicks Each week Ruth Padel discusses a contemporary poet through an example of their work
Do you wish to request the book?
Books: The Sunday Poem - No. 59 Susan Wicks Each week Ruth Padel discusses a contemporary poet through an example of their work
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Newspaper Article
Books: The Sunday Poem - No. 59 Susan Wicks Each week Ruth Padel discusses a contemporary poet through an example of their work
2000
Overview
This is from the collection Open Diagnosis, whose cover shows a \"magnetic resonance image\" of the poet's own brain. The poem closes a section which charts a progression towards the nightmare diagnosis of her own multiple sclerosis. Earlier poems spoke of her \"flora and fauna\" of body cells and chemicals in poison-terms (\"cholinesterase, multiple sclerosis, poison oak\"), and imagined blindness and disability to come, in titles like \"When I Am Blind I Shall,\" and \"A Disabled Toilet Is\". But now things are OK after all. She can re-see the future free of threat; can see the snake's head of destiny knowing it is not, after all, poisonous. The poem ends on an image of a snake's head, aka her future, shrinking to nameable proportions and displaces illness and death on to another creature dying. The poet is no longer the object of X-ray and diagnosis but an observer. She kneels, not as a victim, but to watch, see, and re-diagnose what she is seeing. I see / the head is not a head, / the slit I have seen as mouth / is not a mouth. The poem celebrates escape from danger with sun stroking / the slug's wet skin as it hangs / in the light, resting, so that even the victim / must surely feel pleasure. Death is someone else's sliding reversal of birth, a slug sucked backwards / to the belly that is not belly.
Publisher
Independent Digital News & Media
Subject
