Willow Weep For Me, Autobiography Of A Face By Arthur...

(Title) The poem (title of poem) depicts a moment of a womans stay at the hospital, where she experiences pain and depression. The author of the poem engages with and addresses major themes such as detachment in biomedicine, experience of being in the hospital from the patient’s perspective, the meaning of illness, and the experience of illness for the patient. The narrative can be compared to Arthur Kleinman’s the Illness Narratives, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s Willow Weep for Me, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s â€Å"The Yellow Wall-Paper.† The narrator of the poem begins with stating that â€Å"some kind of shadow was behind her/ she ran towards nowhere/ dark, empty, cold, stuck.† The poem depicts the†¦show more content†¦Moreover, the author portrays the character’s loneliness, feelings, and emotions as a result of her physical and mental distress. Similarly represented in Willow Weep for Me and its depiction of Danquah, her sister, and friends’ alienation and isolation regarding their clinical depression (Danquah). Further, the â€Å"pain† and â€Å"whimpers† are the physical and emotional responses to her illness, which can be compared to Grealy’s bodily response to chemotherapy, â€Å"wanting to turn itself inside out, made wave after wave of attempts to rid itself of this unseeable intruder, this overwhelming and noxious poison† (66). In the next stanza, the poet describes â€Å"A figure walking towards cloaked in blue/ Beeping/ Tubes/ Needles.† The poem addresses the routinely and monotonous aspect of being in the hospital for long periods of time. It is a critique of the biomedical model and how the hospital system is created where patients are tended to by multiple doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals. The patients and healthcare professionals are unable to form a relationship that consists of what Kleinman describes as â€Å"empathetic witnessing† (Kleinman). Therefore, detachment between patient and health workers is developed and established, to which the patient cannot recognize or know the people assisting them. In addition, Grealy discusses this in her earliest accounts and appointments with doctors. She states that there is a layer of â€Å"condescension† and is an â€Å"endemic in the medical