How Could I Not Be Among You

by Ted Rosenthal

Poetry and photographs capture the moods and experiences of a leukemia victim during the last months of his life

80 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1973

Reviews

[Gessy Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very short and powerful collection of poetry and prose written by someone facing death. What I loved about this book is how it leaves you not feeling bad for the ill-fated poet. Instead you are grateful that he has left this gift behind. Death is not something we want to read about and if you read this thinking about depression than it will leave you depressed. But, if you simply read you will see how life-affirming this dying man's voice is.

[Annette Vaillancourt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this back in college...back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I loved it then and love it still. How powerful a story of a poet living with a terminal illness, yet coming alive in unexpected ways because of it. Then when he went into remission, he "came crashing down."

It's an inspiring story to wake those of us whose end-time is uncertain. Appreciate what we have every day. Tell people we love them and be kind to strangers.

[Dan Sendker · Rating 5 out of 5]

As gut-wrenching as it is eloquent, as intimate as it is important. Read this and watch the 29-minute film on YouTube. RIP Ted Rosenthal, and thank you for this rare gift.

[Ivy]

I'm no writer, and I sometimes fall prey to circle jerking my command of the English language, especially when I am talking about lofty concepts like mortality or injustice. It seems like an injustice. It is an injustice that after a lifetime, no matter how short, we all face an absence of existence. That we work so hard to agree to life's contract, and at some indeterminate point the carbon copy is lost in the wheels of the ether's bureaucracy, and death appears with a freshly drawn set. And that we must accept this, whatever its nature, or in this case, lack thereof. That it is inexorable, not a matter of who but how and when. And though I see a reflection of what I hope to be most days in Mr. Rosenthal's verse, what I think I achieve, that feeling of just being, just devoting a self to the persistent now, my heart breaks to know that this was not always the case, and that some living person could very well banish the nowness, the present, to instead rage against a death sentence with no fixed execution date. Because really, how are we to keep our appointments if we don't know when they are.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very beautiful, sharp, clear-eyed looking at death as it comes slowly.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still rereading. Though 20 years old it's a book that no one wants to read. No one wants to read about death in the first person. Wonderful poetry mixed with prose, poetry better. Painful. Wonderful.