By Auscultation Podcast
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The podcast currently has 42 episodes available.
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Description:
An immersive reading of On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf with reflection on language, health humanities and bipolar disorder.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com
Work:
Excerpts from On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf
Finally, to hinder the description of illness in literature, there is the poverty of the language. English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. It has all grown one way. The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry. There is nothing ready made for him. He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand-new word in the end drops out. Probably it will be something laughable. […] Yet it is not only a new language that we need, more primitive, more sensual, more obscene, but a new hierarchy of the passions; love must be deposed in favour of a temperature of 104; jealousy give place to the pangs of sciatica; sleeplessness play the part of villain, and the hero become a white liquid with a sweet taste—that mighty Prince with the moths' eyes and the feathered feet, one of whose names is Chloral.
References:
On Being Ill: https://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500221h.html#ch3
Bantel C, Sörös P. On pain - Virginia Woolf and the language of poets and patients. Br J Pain. 2021 Nov;15(4):497-500.
Munday I, Kneebone I, Newton-John T. The language of chronic pain. Disabil Rehabil. 2021 Feb;43(3):354-361.
Pett S. Rash Reading: Rethinking Virginia Woolf's On Being Ill. Lit Med. 2019;37(1):26-66.
Dalsimer K. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). Am J Psychiatry. 2004 May;161(5):809.
Koutsantoni K. Manic depression in literature: the case of Virginia Woolf. Med Humanit. 2012 Jun;38(1):7-14.
Bazin, N. T. (1994). Postmortem diagnoses of Virginia Woolf's 'madness': The precarious quest for truth. In B. M. Rieger (Ed.), Dionysus in literature: Essays on literary madness (pp. 133-147). Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
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Description:
An immersive reading of Sonnet – To Science by Edgar Allen Poe with reflection on sonnets, science, and Greek and Roman mythology.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Sonnet—To Science
By Edgar Allen Poe
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
References:
Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48625/sonnet-to-science
Hirsch, E. (1999). How to read a poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry. HarperCollins.
Sonnet: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70051/learning-the-sonnet
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Description:
An immersive reading of Open Windows by Sara Teasdale with reflection on mobility, pain, trees and wonder.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Open Windows
by Sara Teasdale
Out of the window a sea of green trees
Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer,
They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!"
But I cannot answer.
I am alone with Weakness and Pain,
Sick abed and June is going,
I cannot keep her, she hurries by
With the silver-green of her garments blowing.
Men and women pass in the street
Glad of the shining sapphire weather,
But we know more of it than they,
Pain and I together.
They are the runners in the sun,
Breathless and blinded by the race,
But we are watchers in the shade
Who speak with Wonder face to face.
References:
Sara Teasdale: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sara-teasdale
Ulrich RS. View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science. 1984 Apr 27;224(4647):420-1.
Mihandoust S, Joseph A, Kennedy S, MacNaughton P, Woo M. Exploring the Relationship between Window View Quantity, Quality, and Ratings of Care in the Hospital. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Oct 12;18(20):10677.
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Description:
An immersive reading of two poems, ‘Suicide’s Note’ and ‘Sick Room,’ by Langston Hughes with reflection on suicide, locations of illness and the personification of death.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/
Work:
Suicide’s Note
By Langston Hughes
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
Sick Room
By Langston Hughes
How quiet
It is in this sick room
Where on the bed
A silent woman lies between two lovers—
Life and Death,
And all three covered with a sheet of pain.
References:
The Weary Blues: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Weary_Blues
Langston Hughes: https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes
Harkup, K. (2020). Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, stabbings and Broken hearts.
Novotney, A. (2020, March 24). The risks of social isolation. Monitor on Psychology, 50(5). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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An immersive reading of excerpts from Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag with reflection on cancer, tuberculosis, metaphors and myths.
References:
Illness as Metaphor: https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9780312420130
NB: Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore
Curran J. Illness as Metaphor; AIDS and its Metaphors. BMJ. 2007 Sep 8;335(7618):517.
Clow B. Who's afraid of Susan Sontag? Or, the myths and metaphors of cancer reconsidered. Soc Hist Med. 2001 Aug;14(2):293-312.
Oransky I. Susan Sontag. Lancet. 2005 Feb 5-11;365(9458):468.
Diniz G, Korkes L, Tristão LS, Pelegrini R, Bellodi PL, Bernardo WM. The effects of gratitude interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Einstein (Sao Paulo). 2023 Aug 11;21:eRW0371.
Boggiss AL, Consedine NS, Brenton-Peters JM, Hofman PL, Serlachius AS. A systematic review of gratitude interventions: Effects on physical health and health behaviors. J Psychosom Res. 2020 Aug;135:110165. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110165.
The podcast currently has 42 episodes available.