Customer Reviews

The Radiation Sonnets: For My Love, in Sickness and in Health

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I heard the NPR broadcast of Jane Yolen reading from her collection of "Radiation Sonnets" and was astounded by how moving that excerpt was, so I ordered the book. The *whole book* is as moving and as brilliant.

Jane Yolen has made her reputation as a multi-award-winning author in a number of spheres: fantasy novels for adults (Sister Light, Sister Dark), for young adults (The Devil's Arithmetic), for children (Owl Moon, How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?) - but her poetry, especially this collection, is so honest and real that it reaches right out and grabs your heart.

I cannot say how deeply moved I have been reading this book. My husband came back from work and found me in tears: a dear cousin of mine died of a particularly vicious cancer a few years ago, and I wish to heaven that I could have sent this book to her husband at the time.

Of course it has a universal appeal to anyone who is caring for, or has cared for, someone undergoing radiation therapy - but there is also the obvious love story of Jane and her husband. The nearest I can come to a parallel would be 'A Grief Observed' by C.S. Lewis, in terms of the revelation of deep personal feelings, but Lewis (God rest his soul) was apparently a man who found it hard to deal with emotions - he married late and had no children. Jane Yolen has children and grandchildren and she is writing these sonnets for the man who has shared her whole life.

Powerful. Honest, true, painful and triumphant - what an astounding work. This is a book that will give comfort to the thousands of us who will almost certainly have, at some point, to deal with the maelstrom of emotions involved when a loved one has cancer. Read it. Buy a copy for your friend who could gain comfort from knowing that their feelings of love and hope and frustration and anger and fear are universal. Blessings on Jane Yolen for allowing the rest of us this glimpse of her deepest heart, and for letting us know that we are not alone.

Crossing genres from Young Adult to Poetry, Jane Yolen surprises me yet again. There is nothing glib here in this collection of 42 sonnets, nothing that the poetry critics would call elegant. Considering the subject and the reader who might be the caretaker of someone seriously ill, the poetry enthusiast, or the poet, this is the book's strength. Each of these poems were written during a day of the 42 day regimen of radiation of Yolen's husband, and the work does way more than chronicle the horrid effects of the potential "salvation." She gets into the heart of the role she plays in this situation, into the heart of the wife, and of the marriage. Jane Yolen has succeeded with little artifice, little poetic device, just a heart she's opened and shared with her readership.

This book is absolutely wonderful. I rarely buy books new, but this was absolutely worth it - these sonnets are so powerful, so well-written, that I am thrilled to own this beautiful little book.

Radiation Sonnets is a wonderful collection, written from the heart and mind. It is a touchy subject and Yolen refrains from becoming touchy and instead takes the reader on a journey through the very real experience of cancer. Her sonnets are carefully crafted and right on point. I go back to this collection again and again, not just because she took the subject and illuminated it beautifully, but also because she can really "sonnet!"

A keeper for sure.

I gave it to my supervisor and she passed it around in her support group. Her husband died of brain cancer. The poems are sweet, intelligent, and accessible.