The Language of Cancer
by Caroline Johnson
65 Poems ~ 135 pages
Price: $23.00
Publisher: Kelsay Books
ISBN #: 978-1-63980-742-0
To Order: Amazon.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Poet Caroline Johnson does something remarkable in her latest collection, The Language of Cancer. While the poems in it reflect heavily on the disease itself. Johnson shows a remarkable ability to stream into the work, life’s everyday challenges. Those things that must be attended to whether she feels good, feels bad, or feels indifferent to it all. She leads with “Mermaid in the Garden.” This poem reflects upon the changes cancer has wrought. Her “prince” is her husband Bill. She finds herself outside of his “castle,” where his guitar riffs have become her profoundest nourishment. About half way through the poem she confides:
I hide in the nautilus of your heart, but Cancer’s
hook cut open the corner of my mouth and I have lost
all sense of time, tasting only blood and metastasis.
I stop to smell a wild rose, finger a Joe Pye weed,
wink at butterfly bushes. I don’t remember anything
of Cancer’s rape, but its fruit grows in my womb.
Such is the power of Caroline Johnson’s wrestling match with cancer. Make no mistake about it–in Caroline, the Devil met his match.
The Preface is an indispensable segue into the poet’s world. I needed her thoughtful words as preparation for my reading experience.
The Language of Cancer is organized into seven sections: I. Before, II. Fear, III. Treatment, IV. Recovery, V. Spirit, VI. Survival, and VII. After.
From Before, the poet reprises joyous good times with Bill. They go places together, do things together like attend an outdoors jazz festival recalling:
ten years before we first met,
wrestle on a stadium blanket,
listen as John Coltrane riffs
his way to a supreme love.
Then all too soon Fear sets in. Caroline finds herself “At the Surgeon’s Office.” Her doctor, a woman who speaks slowly, and clutches the black frames of her glasses, ushers forth a word the patient doesn’t want to hear … positive. Her body has betrayed her. She wonders:
… when the cells first went rogue.
Was it on my wedding day, my bust filling a strapless
ivory dress, my braided hair hidden behind a floor-length
Priscilla of Boston veil, my neck sporting my sister’s
borrowed pearls? …
All these thoughts and countless others course through her being like a cascading waterfall. At the same moment, her basement boiler, a dinosaur, is giving fits. Only a small distraction magnified by other concerns. In a poignant moment, the poet hopes to outlive the boiler, but she must first get rid of this cancer that has taken over my left breast.
Moving into the section on Treatment … “Thoughts Before My Mastectomy” may speak truth to countless women in Caroline’s situation. Women who want to ask the anesthesiologist:
… when will I will wake up.
He says he doesn’t know.
I am waiting to wake up.
I am waiting for the day
I will really enjoy fruit.
As the chronology of her experience continues into Recovery, the poet uses a series of one-word titles to develop her theme. They themselves are a kind of poem: “Slumber,” “Descending,” “Sparrow,” “March,” and “Amazons.” Each of these pulls back the curtain on the arduous work of recovery. I am especially moved by these lines (published in full) entitled “March”:
brutally cold
the kind of wind that seeps
through your skin, unkind
as we wait for spring
not quite yet the cruelest
month. I walk across campus
hold a scarf to my face
hold together my life
as thoughts spin despite cancer
I am happy. I have the Coat
of Love swaddling my trauma.
Inside the office a warm cup
of coffee, paper to write
a poem, and a pen. I am ready
for the morning, and for the
mourning, should it come.
As Johnson completes the orbit of her cancer experience in the next three sections, her poems crescendo. With unequalled power, they exhibit faith in the human spirit to live life to the full. Even with a companion not asked for nor wanted.
The Language of Cancer is a language that belongs to everyone.
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