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The Radiation Sonnets: For My Love, in Sickness and in Health
When one of America's best-loved, bestselling authors faces a life-altering crisis, she responds by creating a remarkable sequence of poems that offers hope and reassurance to others seeking comfort.
Jane Yolen has spent her life giving enjoyment to millions of readers with her award-winning books and poems. But when her husband was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in his skull, she began to write to find solace. For the forty-three days that David underwent radiation treatment, Jane spent each night pouring her emotions into a sonnet. It was the only part of the day over which she felt she had any control. When Jane read some of those poems on NPR's All Things Considered, there was an immediate outpouring of support and a clamoring for her work from cancer patients, those who treat and care for them, and those listeners simply moved by her words. The Radiation Sonnets is for them.
The poems reflect not only what happened on a particular day--the naps and nausea, visits from family and friends, Jane's struggle to get food into her weakened husband--but also tell a larger of her deep love for her husband, her ambivalence about medical technology, her joy in small victories, her acknowledgment of life's utter precariousness, her humor in the face of fear, and her refusal to give up hope.
For caregivers and survivors alike, for anyone whose life has been touched by illness, The Radiation Sonnets is a triumphant celebration of the human spirit.
Jane Yolen has spent her life giving enjoyment to millions of readers with her award-winning books and poems. But when her husband was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in his skull, she began to write to find solace. For the forty-three days that David underwent radiation treatment, Jane spent each night pouring her emotions into a sonnet. It was the only part of the day over which she felt she had any control. When Jane read some of those poems on NPR's All Things Considered, there was an immediate outpouring of support and a clamoring for her work from cancer patients, those who treat and care for them, and those listeners simply moved by her words. The Radiation Sonnets is for them.
The poems reflect not only what happened on a particular day--the naps and nausea, visits from family and friends, Jane's struggle to get food into her weakened husband--but also tell a larger of her deep love for her husband, her ambivalence about medical technology, her joy in small victories, her acknowledgment of life's utter precariousness, her humor in the face of fear, and her refusal to give up hope.
For caregivers and survivors alike, for anyone whose life has been touched by illness, The Radiation Sonnets is a triumphant celebration of the human spirit.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
66 people want to read
About the author
Jane Yolen
971 books3,229 followersJane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 29, 2017
I read this book a long time ago but was just thinking about it today as I recommended it to a friend. This is a book I've shared with students when we are reading Elizabethan sonnets and lent out to one student who loved the example I shared in class and had to read the whole thing and share it with her mother, which was so lovely. Oh, and listen to that NPR interview with Yolen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
I wish I could say something profound and worthy of the book right now, but I think what moves me is the effort to give form in the face of so much formlessness, all the fear and grief of seeing someone you love suffer so much. I tell my students that literary form is generative--when you work within the constraints of rhyme and meter, you get creative new associations that you didn't have before, as one rhyme leads to the next, and serenity re-shapes the original idea of your composition into something similar but not at all the same. I think with a situation like this one, writing feels like prayer, an offering up, and an invitation to let the form take over and write something with you that you wouldn't have had the strength to write on your own. It's a beautiful, moving book.
I wish I could say something profound and worthy of the book right now, but I think what moves me is the effort to give form in the face of so much formlessness, all the fear and grief of seeing someone you love suffer so much. I tell my students that literary form is generative--when you work within the constraints of rhyme and meter, you get creative new associations that you didn't have before, as one rhyme leads to the next, and serenity re-shapes the original idea of your composition into something similar but not at all the same. I think with a situation like this one, writing feels like prayer, an offering up, and an invitation to let the form take over and write something with you that you wouldn't have had the strength to write on your own. It's a beautiful, moving book.
November 2, 2007
A collection of sonnets by Jane Yolen, written while her husband David Stemple was undergoing radiation treatment for a brain tumor. Every night, for the duration of his treatment, Yolen came home and wrote a sonnet. The tightly compressed form, she claims, helped her deal with each day.
The premise is interesting, but the poems just don't stack up in the long run. The best poem in the entire sequence, in my opinion, is the very first one. It's just beautiful -- the form really works for the poem. But that promise isn't upheld throughout the remainder of the collection. Some are amusing, some are sad, but some just aren't weighty enough for sonnets -- there's not enough there to justify the form.
The premise is interesting, but the poems just don't stack up in the long run. The best poem in the entire sequence, in my opinion, is the very first one. It's just beautiful -- the form really works for the poem. But that promise isn't upheld throughout the remainder of the collection. Some are amusing, some are sad, but some just aren't weighty enough for sonnets -- there's not enough there to justify the form.
February 6, 2013
Maybe I just don't like sonnets much.
Glad it helped the poet, but couldn't get into it.
Glad it helped the poet, but couldn't get into it.
August 22, 2022
well that was fucking heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
October 17, 2023
Interesting situation, interesting response to her husband's 43-day (43-poem) cancer radiation treatment. Poetry not great.
September 4, 2022
these were really beautiful, especially Talisman (day 16), confusion (day 21), bird watching (day 35), and hawks (day 40). i enjoyed the afterword as well. many of the poems weren't particularly well crafted but the subject matter was obviously so compelling that doesn't matter.
April 23, 2008
Radiation Sonnets by Jane Yolen, was dedicated to her love in sickness and in health. The book contains forty-three, well written and thoroughly entrancing poems written about her husband’s battle with a brain tumor that led to watchful success at the time of publication. They don’t revolve around death or sickness, but about the relationship between loved ones. But more importantly, they are written in true sonnet style since they are all about love.
Part of the poems relate to watching her husband as the radiation treatments progress, some about family members as they visit. All have a flavor of being in the moment--seeing things not seen before, for instance, the change from being the rider in a car, to the one who is driving. Other poems pull nature into them, Hawks towards the end, Bird Watching and Graduation day are truly lovely because of how they share the appreciation of life. The ending lines to Hawks, “I am yours, the Hawk’s true wife” brings you back to that grief and joy of living on the edge. Equally powerful is “Daffodil Day” that speaks of how a gift of daffodils to patients returned heartfelt wishes of a return gift. When a writer takes a subject like that, keeps to the original, but flips the meaning on you, its hard to not be impressed.
In poems like “Work Week”, “Organization” and “Away”, Ms. Yolen paints how a family is affected, not just the patient. Work week relays the exhausted move from one world at home to the usual routine and how it feels. Organization hurts as a daughter helps her father restore order to his office and it seems to be too much closure at the moment to endure. Away talks about how it feels to leave her much cared for patient.
Overall, I think this is a lovely book and am pleased to have purchased it. I was expecting something about Madame Curie and received something about love and loss and hope. Ms. Yolen makes skilled use of word play, even titling one sonnet “Words” that discusses how we use words to avoid the true meaning at times. I think anyone that has a loved one that is ill will find beauty in this document of the battle played out in words and in waiting. Others will find the very carefully crafted sonnets modern and worth study.
Part of the poems relate to watching her husband as the radiation treatments progress, some about family members as they visit. All have a flavor of being in the moment--seeing things not seen before, for instance, the change from being the rider in a car, to the one who is driving. Other poems pull nature into them, Hawks towards the end, Bird Watching and Graduation day are truly lovely because of how they share the appreciation of life. The ending lines to Hawks, “I am yours, the Hawk’s true wife” brings you back to that grief and joy of living on the edge. Equally powerful is “Daffodil Day” that speaks of how a gift of daffodils to patients returned heartfelt wishes of a return gift. When a writer takes a subject like that, keeps to the original, but flips the meaning on you, its hard to not be impressed.
In poems like “Work Week”, “Organization” and “Away”, Ms. Yolen paints how a family is affected, not just the patient. Work week relays the exhausted move from one world at home to the usual routine and how it feels. Organization hurts as a daughter helps her father restore order to his office and it seems to be too much closure at the moment to endure. Away talks about how it feels to leave her much cared for patient.
Overall, I think this is a lovely book and am pleased to have purchased it. I was expecting something about Madame Curie and received something about love and loss and hope. Ms. Yolen makes skilled use of word play, even titling one sonnet “Words” that discusses how we use words to avoid the true meaning at times. I think anyone that has a loved one that is ill will find beauty in this document of the battle played out in words and in waiting. Others will find the very carefully crafted sonnets modern and worth study.
July 5, 2012
I loved this little book of poetry. The author details her husband's progress through radiation for an inoperable brain tumor. I can relate to this because my daughter had radiation (in addition to multiple rounds of chemotherapy and surgical resections) for osteosarcoma in her spine. I can remember how the radiation had burned her esophagus and made it almost impossible to eat. There were so many poems that spoke to me.
My favorite was the first one, "A Promise to Eurydice" :
Do not go, my love - oh, do not leave so soon
Familiar halls and rooms that know your touch.
I want another April, May, and June,
I want - oh still the wanting is so much.
What - forty years gone by? Why need we more
When those before us fill us both with dread?
Oft times I see you staring out the door
As though you're longing for the path ahead.
We go then, hand in hand, into the deep,
Each day a visit to the blank machines,
Those promises we made we mean to keep,
By these mechanicals or other means.
And if alone you chance that endless track,
I'll bring you home, without once looking back.
Finished on 7-3-12, this would have been Catie's 21st birthday.
My favorite was the first one, "A Promise to Eurydice" :
Do not go, my love - oh, do not leave so soon
Familiar halls and rooms that know your touch.
I want another April, May, and June,
I want - oh still the wanting is so much.
What - forty years gone by? Why need we more
When those before us fill us both with dread?
Oft times I see you staring out the door
As though you're longing for the path ahead.
We go then, hand in hand, into the deep,
Each day a visit to the blank machines,
Those promises we made we mean to keep,
By these mechanicals or other means.
And if alone you chance that endless track,
I'll bring you home, without once looking back.
Finished on 7-3-12, this would have been Catie's 21st birthday.
May 28, 2015
Well-known author, Jane Yolen, wrote this collection while her husband was receiving radiation treatment for a brain tumor. For those who have been through this experience Yolen's sonnets will ring true from the standpoint of a bystander/caregiver and what our thoughts and feelings might be at such a difficult time. It is important for families to have their own perspective recorded as the focus is usually on the patient.
April 22, 2008
This is a book of sonnets written by a woman while her husband was under radiation therapy for an inoperable brain tumor. She wrote one sonnet a night for more than forty days, and each chronicled in some way what they both were going through. Not perfectly written sonnets (which wasn't the point anyway), but heartfelt and emotive.
May 25, 2015
Yolen wrote this series of 43 sonnets during the time her husband was undergoing radiation therapy for a malignant brain tumor. At a time when all else in her life was out of control, these sonnets were the one thing she could control. I found them to be wrenchingly honest and compelling. I wound up reading this in one sitting. It gave me new appreciation for this form of poetry.
May 8, 2016
Very intimate and honestly written book about her husband's fight against cancer. What a beautiful love story they had.
September 8, 2007
Yolen wrote these poems during the course of her husband's treatment for cancer.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews