E26 Alcestis by Rebekka DePew
17m
·
Auscultation
·
Description:
An immersive reading of Alcestis by Rebekka DePew with reflection on resuscitation, life after death, and work-home balance.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Alcestis
by Rebekka DePew
Those who die and then return are
often silent
which has never once been attributed to
having seen god
sometimes when I come back
I do not speak
sometimes when I come back
I smell on my children's breath
the tinge of flesh left too long unfed
sinew without nerve
we are lightning set to smolder
I know that now
before I left I was told
that the sun and the moon were too heavy for
the same sky
I was not told that death would linger
I was not told that the river Styx was petty
and bureaucratic I was not told
that I would always see the
asphodel in its upperworld daffodil shadows
and never again fit like salt into water in
this living world with its
olive trees and vineyards
and chamomile tea in the evening
I belong to another world
one that does not know what to make
of such things
References
Alcestis: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-1169
DePew R. Alcestis. Ann Intern Med. 2023;176(3):422. doi:10.7326/M22-1169
Enjabment: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/enjambment
More poems by Rebekka DePew
https://ars-medica.ca/index.php/journal/search/index?query=Rebekka+DePew&dateFromYear=&dateFromMonth=&dateFromDay=&dateToYear=&dateToMonth=&dateToDay=&authors=
https://www.acpjournals.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Rebekka+DePew
https://jamanetwork.com/searchresults?q=Rebekka%20DePew&allSites=1&SearchSourceType=1&exPrm_qqq={DEFAULT_BOOST_FUNCTION}%22Rebekka%20DePew%22&exPrm_hl.q=Rebekka%20DePew
The episode E26 Alcestis by Rebekka DePew from the podcast Auscultation has a duration of
17:44. It was first published
More episodes from Auscultation
E37 excerpts from Arabian Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane
Description:
An immersive reading of excerpts from Arabian Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane with reflection on leprosy, the ideal clinician and cutaneous treatments.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
The Story of King Yoonan and the Sage Dooban from The Thousand and One Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane.
in former times, in the country of the Persians, a monarch who was called King Yoonán, possessing great treasures and numerous forces, valiant, and having troops of every description; but he was afflicted with leprosy, which the physicians and sages had failed to remove; neither their potions, nor powders, nor ointments were of any benefit to him; and none of the physicians was able to cure him. At length there arrived at the city of this king a great sage, stricken in years, who was called the sage Doobán: he was acquainted with ancient Greek, Persian, modern Greek, Arabic, and Syriac books, and with medicine and astrology, both with respect to their scientific principles and the rules of their practical applications for good and evil; as well as the properties of plants, dried and fresh, the injurious and the useful: he was versed in the wisdom of the philosophers, and embraced a knowledge of all the medical and other sciences. […]
He […] hired a house, in which he deposited his books, and medicines, and drugs. Having done this, he selected certain of his medicines and drugs, and made a goff-stick, with a hollow handle, into which he introduced them; after which he made a ball for it, skillfully adapted; and on the following day, after he had finished these, he went again to the King, and kissed the ground before him, and directed him to repair to the horse-course, and to play with the ball and goff-stick. The King, attended by his Emeers and Chamberlains and Wezeers, went thither, and, as soon as he arrived there, the sage Doobán presented himself before him, and handed to him the goff-stick, saying, Take this goff-stick, and grasp it thus, and ride along the horse-course, and strike the ball with it with all thy force, until the palm of thy hand and thy whole body become moist with perspiration, when the medicine will penetrate into thy hand, and pervade thy whole body; and when thou hast done this, and the medicine remains in thee, return to thy palace, and enter the bath, and wash thyself, and sleep: then shalt thou find thyself cured: and peace be on thee.
References:
1001 Nights: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34206/34206-h/34206-h.htm
Leprosy: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/index.html
Grzybowski A, Nita M. Leprosy in the Bible. Clin Dermatol. 2016 Jan-Feb;34(1):3-7. doi: 10.1016/j.clindermatol.2015.10.003. Epub 2015 Nov 17.
Eather N, Wade L, Pankowiak A, Eime R. The impact of sports participation on mental health and social outcomes in adults: a systematic review and the 'Mental Health through Sport' conceptual model.
Oja P, Titze S, Kokko S, Kujala UM, Heinonen A, Kelly P, Koski P, Foster C. Health benefits of different sport disciplines for adults: systematic review of observational and intervention studies with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2015 Apr;49(7):434-40.
E36 Spring and All Poem XVI by William Carlos Williams
Description:
An immersive reading of Spring and All Poem XVI by William Carlos Williams with reflection on signs of illness, jaundice, liver failure, onomatopoeia and poetic apostrophe.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Spring and All, Poem XVI
By William Carlos Williams
O tongue
licking
the sore on
her netherlip
O toppled belly
O passionate cotton
stuck with
matted hair
elysian slobber
from her mouth
upon
the folded handkerchief
I can’t die
--moaned the old
jaundiced woman
rolling her
saffron eyeballs
I can’t die
I can’t die
References:
Spring and All:
https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/0881/Spring%2520and%2520All-WCW.pdf
or
https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781513283029
William Carlos Williams: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams
Poetic Apostrophe: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/apostrophe-literary-device-meaning
Baughn RE, Musher DM. Secondary syphilitic lesions. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2005 Jan;18(1):205-16.
Health Quality Ontario. In-home care for optimizing chronic disease management in the community: an evidence-based analysis. Ont Health Technol Assess Ser. 2013 Sep 1;13(5):1-65.
NB Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore
E35 A Field of Trilliums by Lori-Anne Noyahr
Description:
An immersive reading of A Field of Trilliums by Lori-Anne Noyahr first published in Ars Medica in 2023 with reflection on brain death, anesthesia, liminality and sounds.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Noyahr, L.-A. (2023). A Field of Trilliums. Ars Medica, 17(2), 3 pp. Retrieved from https://ars-medica.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2131
References:
De Georgia MA. History of brain death as death: 1968 to the present. J Crit Care. 2014 Aug;29(4):673-8.
E34 Sippokni Sia by Winnie Lewis Gravitt
Description:
An immersive reading of Sippokni Sia by Winnie Lewis Gravitt with reflection on the Choctaw Indian Tribe, code switching, aging and the grandmother effect.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Sippokni Sia
Winnie Lewis Gravitt
I am old, Sippokni sia.
Before my eyes run many years,
Like panting runners in a race.
Like a weary runner, the years lag;
Eyes grow dim, blind with wood smoke;
A handkerchief binds my head,
For I am old. Sippokni sia.
Hands, once quick to weave and spin;
Strong to fan the tanchi;
Fingers patient to shape dirt bowls;
Loving to sew hunting shirt;
Now, like oak twigs twisted.
I sit and rock my grandson.
I am old. Sippokni sia.
Feet swift as wind o’er young cane shoots;
Like stirring leaves in ta falla dance;
Slim like rabbits in leather shoes;
Now moves like winter snows,
Like melting snows on the Cavanaugh.
In the door I sit, my feet in spring water.
I am old. Sippokni sia.
Black like crow’s feather, my hair.
Long and straight like hanging rope;
My people proud and young.
Now like hickory ashes in my hair,
Like ashes of old camp fire in rain.
Much civilization bow my people;
Sorrow, grief and trouble sit like blackbirds on fence.
I am old. Sippokni sia hoke.
References:
Winnie Lewis Gravitt: https://poets.org/poet/winnie-lewis-gravitt
https://dictionary.choctawnation.com/word/
Coall DA, Hertwig R. Grandparental investment: past, present, and future. Behav Brain Sci. 2010 Feb;33(1):1-19; discussion 19-40.
E33 King Lear by William Shakespeare
Description:
An immersive reading of King Lear by William Shakespeare with reflection on dementia, storms and caregivers.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
King Lear by William Shakespeare Act 3 Scene 1 lines 1-20
KENT Who’s there, besides foul weather?
GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather, most unquietly.
KENT I know you. Where’s the King?
GENTLEMAN
Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea
Or swell the curlèd waters ’bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinchèd wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs
And bids what will take all.
KENT But who is with him?
GENTLEMAN
None but the Fool, who labors to outjest
His heart-struck injuries.
References:
King Lear (electronic): https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/king-lear/read/
King Lear (print): https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781501118111
NB: Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore
Ottilingam S. The psychiatry of King Lear. Indian J Psychiatry. 2007 Jan;49(1):52-5.