Articulations: The Body and Illness in Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 1994) is a collection of over four hundred poems compiled and edited by poet and physician Dr. Jon Mukand. This is the second medical poetry collection assembled by Mukand, the first being Sutured Words (Aviva Pr, 1987).

What makes Articulations remarkable is the accessibility of the material, primarily through the diversity in the perspective it offers, beyond that of just the physician. The collection is divided into categories that include Patients’ Views of Illness: The Darkness Within Me Is Growing, Views of Caregivers: Gentleness and the Scalpel, By Healthcare Workers: Dissecting the Good Lines from the Bad and Family and Friends: Afraid to Name This Dying. There is also poetry from more marginalized perspectives within the healthcare system with categories entitled, Women: Flowers of Ether in My Hair, Mental Illness: The Shadow of the Obsessive Idea, Disability: Their Lockstep Tight as Lilac Buds and Social Issues: Hungry and Frightened by Namelessness. The inclusion of these latter categories of poetry is especially meaningful and somewhat revolutionary—given that the collection was originally published over twenty-five years ago. These diverse categorical titles are also displayed on the book’s cover art; they circumnavigate an image of a jointed skeletal hand, likely symbolizing the distinct perspectives or “articulations” present within the field of healthcare.

There is a poem for everyone in Dr. Mukand’s book. Some are more generally relatable like “Waiting for the Doctor” and “Blood Pressure.” Others are more specific, like “After Being Paralyzed from the Neck down for Twenty Years, Mr. Wallace Gets a Chin-Operated Motorized Wheelchair.” Some are tinged with dry humor— like “The Urine Specimen,” while many veer far from the lighthearted, including “Rape” and “To A Young Woman Considering Suicide.” No poem in the series is particularly verbose ,and most are no more than a page. This brevity contributes to the poems’ digestibility and accessibility.

Even poems peppered with medical references can still be appreciated by the majority of layman readers. An example is a poem entitled “Peau d’Orange” from Marcia Lynch about a patient with inflammatory breast cancer. Anyone who has completed medical school training will recall the poem’s title as a nod to the dimpling skin changes seen in inflammatory breast cancer, characteristically described as “peau d’orange,” which is French for “skin of an orange.”. In it Lynch writes, “I accept you calling my breast an orange peel, let you lay hands on this fruit.”. While this imagery enhances the piece, it is not a prerequisite to understand and appreciate the poem’s message; it is merely an additional treat for the medically savvy reader. Even without knowing the specific textbook nomenclature, the poem still hits hard with pleading lines like “If you lift the chill, that unravels my spine, I will send you stars from the Milky Way. Sending them spinning down, dancing a thousand-fold. Please let me grow old.”

In Mukand’s introduction to Articulations, he explains that he hopes “these poetic articulations will help patients to cope with illness, friends and family to understand the patient’s condition and healthcare professionals in their challenging work.” The collection achieves this through offering a diversity of well- packaged perspectives from all walks of the healthcare spectrum. It is poetry that is accessible not only by the seasoned physician who regularly reads The New England Journal of Medicine but also by the people in that very physician’s waiting room who have never even heard of such a publication. —Fredrick Martyn

Fredrick Martyn is a Canadian writer, poet and medical student at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. His poetry has appeared in Pulp Poets Press, Spillwords Press, Bonnie’s Crew and The Online Journal Community and Person-Centered Dermatology, among other places. He is a contributing writer for the medical satire website Gomerblog, as well as other online humor publications including Points In Case, The Establishment, Slackjaw and Little Old Lady Comedy. He also acts as a director for his medical school’s comedy show and can sometimes be found performing his poetry at Busboys & Poets, in D.C.