Diary of Our Fatal Illness

Bardes Charles

This moving prose poem tells the story of an aged man who suffers a prolonged and ultimately fatal illness. From initial diagnosis to remission to relapse to death, the experience is narrated by the man's son, a practicing doctor. Charles Bardes, a physician and poet, draws on years of experience with patients and sickness to construct a narrative that links myth, diverse metamorphoses, and the modern mechanics of death. We stand with the doctors, the family, and, above all, a sick man and his disease as their voices are artfully crafted into a new and powerful language of illness.

About the Author

Charles Bardes is an internal medicine specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and professor of clinical medicine and associate dean at Weill Cornell Medical College. His books include "Pale Faces: The Masks of Anemia", and his poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Agni, Ploughshares, and Raritan.

Reviews

"In his 'Diary' in the form of a prose poem, Charles Bardes traces the works and days of a twilit ordeal of love and suffering. With Ovidian power and moral clarity, he tells how a man of the sea is given over to fire and a father and son are annealed" – Susan Stewart, author of "Red Rover"

"Fashioning a remarkable and truly original account of an octogenarian father's two-year battle with cancer, Bardes tells a powerful, allusive, and richly layered human fable about our common and 'fatal metamorphosis'" – Michael Collier, author of "An Individual History"

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