Review of When You Can't Do Any More
Dr. Barry Zaret, renowned Yale cardiologist, professor, and researcher, eloquently takes on topics that too many physicians avoid talking about--terminal illness, the inevitable end, grief, faith, the way forward. In the title poem, Dr. Zaret describes the role of the physician in administering comfort to the dying patient and loved ones when he exhausts treatment options. He also recounts the long illness, courage, and death of his wife Myrna, as well as remembrances of individual patients and special friends, including the artist Chaim Gross and Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a Yale colleague and author of "How We Die"--a landmark book on death. Each poem in this remarkable collection is sufficed with humanity and compassion as well as finding joy in remembrance of the special little things in each life--the mandelbrodt baked by a patient's wife that was savored at Shabbat dinners, a patient's special smile, reciting psalms at a bedside. And then there's the way forward, hinted in the dedication "For Renee, whose love brought back the sun...." and later celebrated in a series of poems, including "Beneath the Chuppah" recalling his marriage to Renee Drell, who also lost her first husband. There's also a series of poems celebrating the simple beauty and peace of their Berkshire retreat and the return to his artist's studio there. This volume will join other favorite works on my bedside table, to dip into for inspiration and a respite from the grimness of our times.
-- Genell Subak-Sharpe
Ursula Duba, author of Tales from the Child of the Enemy, Reviews Journeys
I would like to recommend the recently released book Journeys by Barry Zaret, one of the most renowned cardiologists in America, an amazing writer and wonderful painter. The seductive simplicity of Zaret’s story poems in Journeys is deceptive because underneath it, they reveal a wealth and richness of life itself in all its joys and heartbreaks. Zaret's language is fine tuned to fit a full range of themes. He allows us into his life, lets us experience his life through his keen senses, equally keen observations and well measured emotions. Zaret made me feel as if he had invited me to accompany him on his Journeys. Despite Zaret's disarming modesty, being with Zaret in Journeys feels like a rare privilege. I am grateful for this privilege. I feel enriched.
-- Ursula Duba
Return to Poetry - Journeys in the Yale Medicine Winter Issue
Every time he updates Clinical Nuclear Cardiology, the text book he co-wrote, Barry L. Zaret, M.D., adds new material. But when he sits down to revise a poem, he does the opposite.
"You start big and you get smaller and smaller," says Zaret, the Robert W. Berliner Professor Emeritus of Medicine, who was Yale's long-time chief of cardiovascular medicine until 2004. "It has to have the right cadence, and there's got to be an economy of words. It's amazing, the time you can spend on simple changes." He reworks the poem over time. "You need to let the poem mature."
Read the full article here.
Journeys is Reviewed in Tablet Magazine
Read a review of Journeys in Tablet Magazine. An excerpt is posted below. The full review can be read here in the Reviews section of Tablet Magazine.
. . .
In short, nothing about Zaret would lead me to believe that he was leading a less-than-secret second life as a poet. Perhaps this is because his recent collection of poems, Journeys, was written, in large part, during the small hours of the morning—at 3:30 a.m., after his coffee, before his morning run, and certainly before heading off to the university to see patients and to teach. Despite being one of the most respected cardiologists in America, Zaret writes more than many full-time writers do. He often goes through 10 or even 15 drafts of a poem before it is finally perfect and cannot stand to do anything less because his poems are, as he himself says “a fabric of [his] whole life.” He writes about his father’s kosher butcher shop. He writes about going to Rockaway beach and saying Kaddish for a friend who died. In one of his poems he even imagines inviting Leonard Cohen to his Sukkah, and warns him that autumn in New England is cold, and that he should “Bring a sweater.”
His frank and plain style can make a poem, at moments like these, quite funny. His verses do not pretend to be highly lyrical, and instead depend on the Tao of simplicity, which can at times make some of the writing a bit colloquial. Zaret’s writing sometimes feels like that of Jacques Prévert refracted through a Jewish lens; lists of ideas and sensations carefully and artfully aligned. The simplicity of his verse allows Zaret to speak frankly about himself, and his poems become very unrestricted, unencumbered, and therefore, very personal, especially when he writes about his late wife, Myrna, and her death.
Like his Judaism, Zaret’s medical training finds its way into his poems. He discusses biological and cardiological processes—not necessarily in the form of metaphor, but often as explanations for why people may behave the way they do. In his poem about his wife “The Last Hours,” he sees his wife as a partner would, but also as a doctor who can identify the signs of death: “Secretions filled your airways,” he writes. This poem, Zaret admitted to me, was “The hardest to write but had to come out.” The medicalized aspect of his poetry can feel forced, but it can also be revealing. There’s something captivating about seeing human life, in the same poem, presented both in a poetic and scientific manner. ... Read more.
Ed Stannard of the New Haven Register Interviews Dr. Barry Zaret.
In an article titled "Woodbridge doctor finds artistic outlet in poetry and painting", Ed Stannard of the New Haven Register interviews Dr. Barry Zaret. You can read the full article here.
Review of When You Can't Do Any More
Dr. Barry Zaret, renowned Yale cardiologist, professor, and researcher, eloquently takes on topics that too many physicians avoid talking about--terminal illness, the inevitable end, grief, faith, the way forward. In the title poem, Dr. Zaret describes the role of the physician in administering comfort to the dying patient and loved ones when he exhausts treatment options. He also recounts the long illness, courage, and death of his wife Myrna, as well as remembrances of individual patients and special friends, including the artist Chaim Gross and Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a Yale colleague and author of "How We Die"--a landmark book on death. Each poem in this remarkable collection is sufficed with humanity and compassion as well as finding joy in remembrance of the special little things in each life--the mandelbrodt baked by a patient's wife that was savored at Shabbat dinners, a patient's special smile, reciting psalms at a bedside. And then there's the way forward, hinted in the dedication "For Renee, whose love brought back the sun...." and later celebrated in a series of poems, including "Beneath the Chuppah" recalling his marriage to Renee Drell, who also lost her first husband. There's also a series of poems celebrating the simple beauty and peace of their Berkshire retreat and the return to his artist's studio there. This volume will join other favorite works on my bedside table, to dip into for inspiration and a respite from the grimness of our times.
-- Genell Subak-Sharpe
Ursula Duba, author of Tales from the Child of the Enemy, Reviews Journeys
I would like to recommend the recently released book Journeys by Barry Zaret, one of the most renowned cardiologists in America, an amazing writer and wonderful painter. The seductive simplicity of Zaret’s story poems in Journeys is deceptive because underneath it, they reveal a wealth and richness of life itself in all its joys and heartbreaks. Zaret's language is fine tuned to fit a full range of themes. He allows us into his life, lets us experience his life through his keen senses, equally keen observations and well measured emotions. Zaret made me feel as if he had invited me to accompany him on his Journeys. Despite Zaret's disarming modesty, being with Zaret in Journeys feels like a rare privilege. I am grateful for this privilege. I feel enriched.
-- Ursula Duba
Return to Poetry - Journeys in the Yale Medicine Winter Issue
Every time he updates Clinical Nuclear Cardiology, the text book he co-wrote, Barry L. Zaret, M.D., adds new material. But when he sits down to revise a poem, he does the opposite.
"You start big and you get smaller and smaller," says Zaret, the Robert W. Berliner Professor Emeritus of Medicine, who was Yale's long-time chief of cardiovascular medicine until 2004. "It has to have the right cadence, and there's got to be an economy of words. It's amazing, the time you can spend on simple changes." He reworks the poem over time. "You need to let the poem mature."
Read the full article here.
Journeys is Reviewed in Tablet Magazine
Read a review of Journeys in Tablet Magazine. An excerpt is posted below. The full review can be read here in the Reviews section of Tablet Magazine.
. . .
In short, nothing about Zaret would lead me to believe that he was leading a less-than-secret second life as a poet. Perhaps this is because his recent collection of poems, Journeys, was written, in large part, during the small hours of the morning—at 3:30 a.m., after his coffee, before his morning run, and certainly before heading off to the university to see patients and to teach. Despite being one of the most respected cardiologists in America, Zaret writes more than many full-time writers do. He often goes through 10 or even 15 drafts of a poem before it is finally perfect and cannot stand to do anything less because his poems are, as he himself says “a fabric of [his] whole life.” He writes about his father’s kosher butcher shop. He writes about going to Rockaway beach and saying Kaddish for a friend who died. In one of his poems he even imagines inviting Leonard Cohen to his Sukkah, and warns him that autumn in New England is cold, and that he should “Bring a sweater.”
His frank and plain style can make a poem, at moments like these, quite funny. His verses do not pretend to be highly lyrical, and instead depend on the Tao of simplicity, which can at times make some of the writing a bit colloquial. Zaret’s writing sometimes feels like that of Jacques Prévert refracted through a Jewish lens; lists of ideas and sensations carefully and artfully aligned. The simplicity of his verse allows Zaret to speak frankly about himself, and his poems become very unrestricted, unencumbered, and therefore, very personal, especially when he writes about his late wife, Myrna, and her death.
Like his Judaism, Zaret’s medical training finds its way into his poems. He discusses biological and cardiological processes—not necessarily in the form of metaphor, but often as explanations for why people may behave the way they do. In his poem about his wife “The Last Hours,” he sees his wife as a partner would, but also as a doctor who can identify the signs of death: “Secretions filled your airways,” he writes. This poem, Zaret admitted to me, was “The hardest to write but had to come out.” The medicalized aspect of his poetry can feel forced, but it can also be revealing. There’s something captivating about seeing human life, in the same poem, presented both in a poetic and scientific manner. ... Read more.
Ed Stannard of the New Haven Register Interviews Dr. Barry Zaret.
In an article titled "Woodbridge doctor finds artistic outlet in poetry and painting", Ed Stannard of the New Haven Register interviews Dr. Barry Zaret. You can read the full article here.