Dianne Silvestri’s second book of poetry But I Still Have My Fingerprints (CavanKerry Press, 2022) artfully documents her shattering experience as a doctor diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Raw, real and unique poems give acute insight into a life-altering trauma through the double lens of a physician who has become the patient.
Dianne Silvestri, poet and physician, is the author of But I Still Have My Fingerprints (CavanKerry Press, 2022), which recounts her journey to recovery from leukemia and stem cell transplantation. Several of her recent works reflect on people close to her receiving critical diagnoses. Since retirement from medicine, she advocates for medical humanities through speaking and teaching. Discover more about her work at diannesilvestri.com
The four sections of the book examine themes from diagnosis to acceptance, donor stem cell infusion and after-effects on her life. “Conversation with My Grandson” heartbreakingly asks “does real you fly away? [when you die.]” There are skillful reflections on the poet’s life through childhood recollections, such as playing teacher or store with her sister, ringing up groceries on their red plastic register while she searches for the words to tell her sister that she is not a match for her bone marrow. She draws a believable parallel between having her bone marrow biopsy and being a fifth grader dissecting owl pellets, a message to the reader that everyday experiences are often also extraordinary.
In fact, this poet has an uncanny ability to write surprises into the normal daily activities of the average person, such as grocery shopping in the poem “Retail Therapy.” Her experience with “pell-mell” grocery carts and “clattering collision” runs parallel to her own journey through chemotherapy and makes evident the vital role humor played in her recovery process. Throughout the book, Silvestri demonstrates her wry sense of humor in poems such as“Poem for George” (George is her IV pole) and “Swallow This,” when she imagines a Magic School Bus ride as her medications go down her throat.
The poet takes us on a medical and spiritual odyssey though Montreal, Venice, Andalusia and her passage through illness. Her calculated rhymes and rhythms create a sense of forward motion, as we travel through the traumatic process alongside her. Silvestri’s use of parenthetical lyrics in “You May Resume Your Normal Activities” provides the reader a glimpse into her rage and the harrowing, out-of-control free fall through illness.
Silvestri completes each poem with devastating final lines. For example, in “PTSD,” she laments “no Undo option for this” and in “Cosmic Questions” she uses a repeat meteor strike in Bosnia to compare to her own random life event in which the final line is “why one of my white cells turned killer.” In a poem addressed to her 28-year-old donor, the poet urges the reader to ponder deeply the value of human life by asking him, “Will your sacrifice be worthwhile?” Editor’s Note: Silvestri’s poem “Meeting My Stem Cell Donor” was published in the Fall-Winter 2024 Intima.
In the final section of Silvestri’s book entitled “Runoff,” we get a real sense of what the poet is left with after this life-altering period. She impresses upon the reader that there is a way to get through despite catastrophic consequences. There is hope on every page of this book, right down to the last line of “New Life,” the final poem in But I Still Have My Fingerprints: “scarlet paintbrush, silvery//lupine emerging from the ruins.” And emerge from the ruins, Silvestri does.—Linda Lamenza
Linda Lamenza is a poet and literacy specialist in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, San Pedro River Review, Nixes Mate Review, Ovunque Siamo and elsewhere. Left-Handed Poetry (Finishing Line Press, 2024) is her first chapbook; it was a finalist for the Hunger Mountain Mayday Chapbook series. Lamenza’s first full-length book, Feast of the Seven Fishes, was published this year by Nixes Mate.