January 1999
96 pages | ISBN 0-919897-64-9
$15.00
In "Reading the Entrails", Glen Downie writes, "it can be dizzying to look down into an open man". As this powerful image suggests, Downie's poetry carries us to the precipice where the heart of human illness and suffering is in full view. His medical poems are harsh and intimate, ironic and tender, the words of a man who has not only worked for years with disabled and dying patients, but opened himself and allowed them under his skin. These are courageous poems, full of tough hope. - Jack Coulehan, MD, SUNY at Stony Brook, NY
Reviews
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Review (Shane Neilson, The Danforth Review, 6/15/2001). "Written with a measure of empathy and the mysteriousness of the good poet: knowing he can't approximate another's experience, he dramatizes as facts allow, and only then ensnares us with observed truth."
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Culturally Bound Illness (Anna Cooper, Canadian Literature, 6/1/2001). "an amalgam of effects -- humor, horror, sadness, confusion, and at times, celebration -- culminates in a vignette-style portrayal of what happens to us when we get sick."
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Wishbone Dance (Kathy Fretwell, Prairie Fire's Online Adjunct, 10/1/2000). "Glen Downie's poetry knifes through western culture's platitudinous and sententious evasion of death and dying."
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Is there a Poet in the House? (Len Gasparini, Toronto Star, 9/26/1999). "Sometimes the meaningful suffering of the patient is contrasted with the seeming insignificance of private feelings. In this respect, Downie's vision wavers between naturalism and expressionism."
Other Titles by Glen Downie
