Four years after the Covid pandemic began, as daily life has returned in large measure to its pre-pandemic shape, assessments and reflections about how the pandemic was able to wreak such havoc and how it could be prevented from occurring again are coming forth. Many are technocratic in nature and assume our aims and pursuits will remain the same as before. Micheal O’Siadhail (pronounced mee-hawl o’sheel), in his new book of poems, Desire, says that in addition to technocratic responses to the pandemic (and other threats to civilization covered in the book), we should give serious thought to what we desire. We talk to O’Siadhail about this idea and he reads selected poems from the book that characterize many aspects of what the pandemic put people through collectively and individually. He also talks about how the forms of his poetry convey his thoughts just as his words do, and how poetry, through syntax, sound, meter, and intensity, can add clarity and effectiveness to prosaic prose communicating complex concepts.

Citation:

Micheal O’Siadhail. Desire. Waco, Tx; Baylor University Press, 2023.


Links:

Micheal O’Siadhail’s website.

Russell Teagarden’s relevant blog pieces in According to the Arts:

• Desire
• One Crimson Thread

Previous podcast episode with Micheal O’Siadhail featuring his poems recounting his late wife’s final years with Parkinson’s disease.

Thanks to Micheal O’Siadhail for bringing his enlightened perspectives on what we experienced with Covid through the piercing poetry in his book, Desire.


Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.

Executive producer: Anne Bentley

We return to the subject of how terrible the HIV/AIDS crisis was at its peak. The first time (Episode 9) we drew from a memoir, documentary film, and a literary novel. This time we feature the graphic memoir, Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 with the author MK Czerwiec. She created a memoir of her time as a nurse in an HIV/AIDS using the comic medium. Since then, Czerwiec has become a leading figure in Graphic Medicine. We talk to her about the Graphic Medicine field and its many applications, and about the many illustrative and poignant insights her book offers about the AIDS crisis in ways biomedical texts and few of the other arts can do nearly as well.

Links:

Website for Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 372

MK Czerwiec’s website

Graphic Medicine organization website

Russell Teagarden’s blog piece on Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 372 in According to the Arts


Thanks to MK Czerwiec for opening our world to graphic medicine and expanding our understanding of the AIDS crisis through your graphic memoir.

Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.

Executive producer: Anne Bentley

Human behaviors in many segments of society during the Covid-19 pandemic could have been predicted based on literary texts from the past and right up to the moment the pandemic began. In this episode, we compare excerpts from selected literary texts imagining or depicting human reactions to plagues ranging from as far back as 700 years to just one month after the pandemic began with statements made or actions taken during the pandemic. The similarities are uncanny. Russell is inclined to think this means we’re doomed; Dan is not so inclined.

Links:

Links to Russell Teagarden’s blog pieces in According to the Arts on the sources discussed in episode:

• The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio, New York, Penguin Classics, 1972 (written in 1351-1353) 
• The Pandemic’s Impact on NYC Migration Patterns, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, Bureau of Budget, November 2021.
• Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis, In: Sinclair Lewis: Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Dodsworth, Library Classics of the United States, New York, 2002 (first published in 1925)
• The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni, Penguin Books, New York, 1972 (first published in 1827)
• The End of October, Lawrence Wright, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2020

Links to sound clips:

• Romeo & Juliet, Act 5, Scene 2 – Shakespeare at Play
• Contagion (2011) – Steven Soderbergh, director; Scot Z. Burns, writer

 
Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.

Executive producer: Anne Bentley