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Detailing Trauma: A Poetic Anatomy
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In a series of linked lyric essays, Detailing Trauma explores in vivid, sometimes graphic detail the many types of wounds from which the human body and spirit may suffer—and heal. Mapping the diseases and injuries that can afflict the body, the author asks how we can continue to live and love in the face of the great potential for suffering and loss.
She names each section ...more
She names each section ...more
Paperback, 102 pages
Published
September 15th 2012
by University Of Iowa Press
(first published January 1st 2012)
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Here's one of those hybrid nonfiction books I love to find so much! It reminds me that what I want to do with my own writing can be done, there's a home and an audience for it, even if people tell me there isn't. So while now might not be the time to do it the way I want to, I continue to read other people doing it so I can stay inspired.
These linked lyric essays specifically talk about the different times of wounds and experiences a body can go through, and how they can heal. It's a lovely book ...more
These linked lyric essays specifically talk about the different times of wounds and experiences a body can go through, and how they can heal. It's a lovely book ...more

The opening of Detailing Trauma is this:
Detailing trauma. Things that can go wrong. So many sites on the body map.
With a flowing narrative that examines the suffering and healing of the human body and soul, Detailing Trauma weaves a thoughtful and heartfelt discovering of the connection of the physical and psychical self. Arianne Zwartjes writes seeking meaning from this intangible life using the trauma experienced by the very tactile and tangible human body. As she weaves, she asks the reader t ...more
Detailing trauma. Things that can go wrong. So many sites on the body map.
With a flowing narrative that examines the suffering and healing of the human body and soul, Detailing Trauma weaves a thoughtful and heartfelt discovering of the connection of the physical and psychical self. Arianne Zwartjes writes seeking meaning from this intangible life using the trauma experienced by the very tactile and tangible human body. As she weaves, she asks the reader t ...more

A beautiful, methodically written, slow musing over the relationship between physical and emotional trauma and loss. I really enjoyed reading this book - the carefully drawn out and described metaphors for each part of the body are thoughtful and relateable. What I liked the most about 'Detailing Trauma' was how it explored how close we are to trauma - health and good times are usually taken for granted, and the deliberately carefully drawn out medical descriptions truly strike close to the hear
...more

Brainy and beautiful. I learned a lot about anatomy, which is rich with delicious vocabulary, and there are profound lyric meditations on love and loss, vulnerability and protection, and the inevitability of rupture. At times a little too clinical, too think-y for my taste. I want more character and story, and these are a little too slant for me to be fully engaged throughout.

Okay, full disclosure: I know Arianne as a student, a sangha sister, and as a friend, so I will be willing to cop to perhaps some bias, so, feel free to take away one star. It still is awesome and "I really liked it."
This is a book to be read slowly and savored; sometimes a paragraph or two will just stop me cold and I've got to 'chew on it,' before reading on. Sometimes, a full essay leaves me breathless and even though I'd like to keep reading, I must stop and let it work on me -- and it does. ...more
This is a book to be read slowly and savored; sometimes a paragraph or two will just stop me cold and I've got to 'chew on it,' before reading on. Sometimes, a full essay leaves me breathless and even though I'd like to keep reading, I must stop and let it work on me -- and it does. ...more

It's as if poetry twinned with a medical textbook. Improbable as it is stunning and lyrical.
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A Stoic exercise in staring finitude straight in the face.
Or: half a poem, half a medical textbook. For those days you just can't choose. ...more
Or: half a poem, half a medical textbook. For those days you just can't choose. ...more
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