In his sixth collection of poetry, the celebrated poet-physician Rafael Campo examines the primal relationship between language, empathy, and healing. As masterfully crafted as they are viscerally powerful, these poems propose voice itself as a kind of therapeutic medium. For all that most ails us, Alternative Medicine offers the balm of song and the salve of the imagination: from the wounds of our stubborn differences of identity, to the pain of alienation in a world of unfeeling technologies, to the shame of the persistent injustices in our society, Campo's poetry displays a deep understanding of hurt as the possibility for healing. Demonstrating an abiding faith in our survival, this stunning, heartfelt book ultimately embraces the great diversity of our ways of knowing and dreaming, of needing and loving, and of living and dying.
- Contents
- I. Havana
- Havana
- My Kind of Love Poem
- A History of Poetry
- Wilhelmina Shakespeare
- The Common Mental Health Disorders of Immigrants
- Advanced Placement
- Elegy for a Revolution
- Patriotic Anthem for a Lost Homeland
- Resort
- New Jersey, the Garden State
- Rio Grande
- Fish Story
- Times Square
- Calendar
- The Thief
- Batteries Not Included
- Kids' Games
- Heart Grow Fonder
- Trees
- Promnesia
- The Reading
- II. Alternative Medicine
- Hospital Song
- Faith Healing
- Iatrogenic
- The Third Step in Obtaining an Arterial Blood Gas
- After the Floods
- For All the Freaks of the World
- Pharmacopeia for the New Millenium
- Recent Past Events
- Alternative Medicine
- Band of Gold
- Primary Care
- Nude
- Not Untrue
- On the Wards
- Without My White Coat
- Health
- Why Doctors Write
- Reforming Health Care
- The Performance
- III. Plonk
- Ode to the Lists in Front of Me
- LAX
- Plonk
- Views of Heaven
- Paternity
- The Massage
- On the Anniversary of the Terrorist Attacks
- Interrogative
- Dreams
- The Golden Age of Venetian Painting
- Shared
- Within
- Love Song for Love Songs
- Poem Written at 5 AM on the Sweetness of Life
- What the Dead See
- Sestina in Red
- The Destruction of the Temples of Machu Picchu
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