One-Breasted Woman

By Susan Deborah King

Book Overview

"The book is powerful for its original treatment of this difficult subject. Reading it is not a merely artistic experience--but also a healing and consoling one; the book would make an excellent gift for a friend with breast cancer, whether or not she is a poet."--Women Review of Books

In her third collection of poems, Susan Deborah King bears witness to a soul's transformation in the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent mastectomy.

In the crucible of disfigurement and confrontation with mortality, a transpersonal figure emerges, a One-Breasted Woman, who is possessed of a powerful and passionate vulnerability. She raises up with outrage at the possible systemic causes of her disease. She holds the earth and beloved people close as she contemplates her end. She connects with the suffering of others. These poems are vivid with fear, heightened awareness, anger, tenderness, sorrow, playfulness, and even joy.

Though the subject is illness, King's imagery often springs from other sources: the mythic dimension, science, or the natural world. From "Song Sparrow" Though his breast / has a black mark on it, / he throws his head back / and with quivering throat sends out his song / . . . "I am here / This is who I am. / I am." The work in this collection is a testament to the possibility that songs of ecstatic, transcendent celebration can rise from the descent into a pit of life-threatening terror.

Susan Deborah King, BA, Scripps College; MDiv, Union Theological Seminary; is the author of two other collections of poetry, Tabernacle: Poems of an Island, and Coven. Having also worked as a Presbyterian minister and psychotherapist, she now teaches creative writing and leads retreats on creativity and spirituality. For the writing and publishing of One-Breasted Woman, she received a grant from the George Family Foundation. The mother of grown twin daughters, King lives with her husband in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Great Cranberry Island, Maine.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977945820
• ISBN13: 9780977945825
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Holy Cow Press
• Length: 135 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Poignant poems

You will be transported in a dimension where pain, hope, fears, love collide and bring out the true nature of our relationship with others, with yourself and our amazing world. Do not be deterred by the idea that it would be sad poems. This isn't the case. These poems are reflections about life & death and advocates hope and belief in a strong bond between all of us.

The Poetry of Life and Death

I am not a student of poetry, but I know what I like: Virgil, Shakespeare, Robert Frost. (And I dig Billy Collins.) Also, as a guy I do not fear breast cancer. (Prostate cancer is another story.) But this book of poetry about breast cancer is first-rate: moving, intense, personal, evocative. While I have left several of my favorite joints at the hospital replaced by selected substitutes, the evidence is now only barely visible scars. Ms. King describes the fearful asymmetry of a one-breast mastectomy to be faced each moment, in various ways: physical, emotional, symbolic. Her candor, and rich, precise language, brings you in to her experience. The poems follow her experience through diagnosis,surgery, post-operative care...and the contribution of community and her continuous close relatonship with the natural world. The advent of cancer brings consideration of death, which is one of the great lessons of this collection, especially for those of us on the downslope of life. I can see Death out there: he will be stopping for me. But, as Ms. King says, "You're not dead yet, so stay rooted,/take nourishment, keep reaching into the blue." She leaves us with an affirmation of life: "Prognosis: life now/Death: eventual."