Customer Reviews

One-Breasted Woman

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I am not a student of poetry, but I know what I like: Virgil, Shakespeare, Robert Frost. (And I dig Billy Collins.) Also, as a guy I do not fear breast cancer. (Prostate cancer is another story.) But this book of poetry about breast cancer is first-rate: moving, intense, personal, evocative. While I have left several of my favorite joints at the hospital replaced by selected substitutes, the evidence is now only barely visible scars. Ms. King describes the fearful asymmetry of a one-breast mastectomy to be faced each moment, in various ways: physical, emotional, symbolic. Her candor, and rich, precise language, brings you in to her experience. The poems follow her experience through diagnosis,surgery, post-operative care...and the contribution of community and her continuous close relatonship with the natural world. The advent of cancer brings consideration of death, which is one of the great lessons of this collection, especially for those of us on the downslope of life. I can see Death out there: he will be stopping for me. But, as Ms. King says, "You're not dead yet, so stay rooted,/take nourishment, keep reaching into the blue." She leaves us with an affirmation of life: "Prognosis: life now/Death: eventual."

You will be transported in a dimension where pain, hope, fears, love collide and bring out the true nature of our relationship with others, with yourself and our amazing world.

Do not be deterred by the idea that it would be sad poems. This isn't the case. These poems are reflections about life & death and advocates hope and belief in a strong bond between all of us.