Review – Corpus

About living with cancer … “I’d Rather Be a Fairy Princess” by Petra Kotrotsos

7 August 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

When Petra Kotrotsos was six years old and playing in a park with friends, she fell off a roundabout, landing on her back. The pain didn’t settle, and Petra was taken to the doctor. An x-ray revealed a large tumour (a neuroblastoma) in her chest.

Now 20, Kotrotsos has written a book for children who find themselves faced with the same kind of challenge. I’d Rather Be a Fairy Princess begins with a statement of courage and fortitude:

My name is Petra and I am seven years old. I’ve always wanted to be a fairy princess, but when cancer attacks, you have to fight it. You have to be a warrior.”

A review of Havi Carel’s ‘Phenomenology of Illness’.

7 August 2017 Leave a Comment

Katherine Hall

Vita Non Est Vivere, Sed Valere Vita Est: life is not just being alive, but being well — Martial.

How appropriate Martial’s words are for Phenomenology of Illness by Havi Carel, which explores the concepts of illness and a life well lived. Although overtly a call to arms for philosophers to take more seriously the experience of illness and what this means to be human and for humans, the superb clarity of language makes this an accessible book for anyone interested in this field. It is a text which can speak poignantly to patients, those who care for them, and anybody with an interest in the philosophy of medicine.

It is to the teachers of student doctors, nurses and other future healthcare workers that I particularly address this review. Havi Carel’s book lays bare the injuries endured by patients due to the limitations of the biomedical model of discourse – but thankfully illustrates many possible ways forward.

‘Listening with my heart’: Poems by Aotearoa New Zealand nurses

24 July 2017 Leave a Comment

Miriam Vollweiler

By their involvement in the arts, whether poetry, painting, or writing novels, nurses and other health professionals have the opportunity to express a side of themselves which is not always possible in their day-to-day work. It is a creative way of reflecting and thinking about what they see and do and feel in their daily contact with patients.” – Lorraine Ritchie, editor of Listening with my Heart

The recently-launched book, Listening with my heart: Poems by Aotearoa New Zealand nurses, is the first anthology of poems by nurses to be published in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Edited by nurse and poet Lorraine Ritchie, with illustrations by Janet de Wagt, it contains poems selected from work submitted by nurses as part of a New Zealand Nurses Organisation’s ‘Visibility of Nursing’ project.

‘Alzheimer’s and a Spoon’: the nourishment of memory

10 July 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

How can we use language to talk about not having language?”

This question held poet Liz Breslin in its grip for the several years it took to write the poems that appear in her first – terrific – collection. The book’s title, Alzheimer’s and a Spoon, encompasses the themes woven through the poems. On the one hand there is a beloved grandmother’s illness, and her gradual loss of memory and language through Alzheimer’s disease. On (or in) the other hand, there is a spoon, and all the nourishment implied by spoons and spooning: physical, emotional and spiritual.

Breslin’s collection probes the bonds between memory, language and identity. It explores a resonating question: What happens to the present and the future if we forget the past?

‘Doctors in Denial’: an account of two cancers, one physical and the other moral’

22 May 2017 2 Comments

Dr Tree Cocks

Doctors in Denial by Ron Jones is a meticulously researched and perceptive account of the “unfortunate experiment” entailing non-treatment of cervical carcinoma in situ that occasioned The Cartwright Inquiry. It is an account of two cancers really, one physical and the other moral.

Jones has gathered together an enormous amount of detailed information from the 1920s to the present day. Because his research has tapped many sources and because he is interested in human dynamics, the chronology sometimes takes a complex route. I found it a multifaceted detective story, to uncover the why and how of the tragedy.

I like to watch

19 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Doug Lilly

This is the time of year where you may turn to a newspaper or magazine to search for recommended titles to read over the summer holidays (apologies to our Corpus readers in the northern hemisphere).

However I am not a “reader”. Those who have seen my not too insignificant collection of books might find this surprising. Over more than 45 of my adult years I have built a library of books that I had (and probably still have) every intention of reading – some day. Many have been leafed through and partially read. Many more retain their mint smell and feel. My vast, obsessive and largely unread collection of books on Bob Dylan fool many into thinking I am some sort of expert on the man.

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