A Body of Work: An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine Edited by Corinna Wagner, Andy Brown Bloomsbury, 2016, PB, 560pp, £24.99, 978-1472513298
‘Verse is for healthy
arty-farties. The dying
and surgeons use prose.’
(Peter Reading, ‘From C’, 1984)
This haiku is the first of hundreds of poems related to medicine and the body in this innovative and substantial anthology. The first of its kind of this magnitude, it indicates the growing popularity and influence of the medical humanities.
Each of the eight sections, such as Consuming, Treatment and Hospitals, Practitioners and Professionals, comprises a chronologically arranged series of poems on the relevant topic, followed by a …