<\/p>\n
What We Know So Far Is<\/em>\u2026 The universality and ineffability of birth, life, and death, have and continue to be (to no ones surprise) some of the most tempting subjects for the poet. Both like and quite unlike the poet, birth, life, and death are equally important subjects for the physician. But the hospital, the clinic, and the car crash are often not the subjects of verse\u2014at least, not from the physician\u2019s lens.<\/p>\n In a way that is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams, Mc Donnell\u2019s most recent book, What We Know So Far Is… examines this coming into being, the being, and the cessation of being in a verse (and at times, prose) that is uniquely medical. Beatific but polished with surgical precision, Mc Donnell expresses what we know so far about what it means to be exist, and what it means when life ends.<\/p>\n He starts, as any good communicator will: with definitions. First, the object: \u201cThe dimension of an object is defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any one point within it\u201d (11). Then, of the most prevalent biome: \u201cA communicant viral biome pervades and inhabits everything. As viruses surround us, on us, inside us, in our air, on our pets\u2019 breath, in the lining of our blood vessels, some will extend toward communication and in order to do so such viruses will use animals and species as hosts\u201d (11). Before, of course, the first of a few definitions of madness: \u201cIn some circumstances, the host cannot support the geometry of altered language, nor can it tolerate the dissonance foist upon its internal inaudible hum: such that is one way toward inevitable \u2018madness,\u2019 intolerance manifest through the host\u2019s inability to communicate effectively with \u2018their own kind\u2019 now they straddle the syntax of more than one species\u201d (11). Instead of \u201ccelebrat[ing]\u201d (12) this straddling, \u201cwe medicate\u201d (12) since \u201cwe can\u2019t measure and frame \u2026 the accepted definition of a dimension, in this case, the viral dimension\u201d (12). And so, we are left with only what we already know.<\/p>\n The rest of the collection explores this knowing and known limitations of knowledge. He deliberately and radically blends epistemologies \u2014through feeling, through experiencing, through study, and through exploration. But he doesn\u2019t limit himself to what he has come to know through moving through the world. Instead, he regularly relates back to the knowledge that has been passed down, mostly through brief interludes of etymological and medical study. To Mc Donnell, we are not an isolated entity; our knowledge, not an isolated incident. He situates himself throughout the collection in this intersectional space of language, science, mathematics, biology, virology, and the self (in the singular and plural senses of the word). see family huddled at the O.R. door: Harvest brings life but comes with it the inevitability of death. Decay and rot break down into the fuel for new life. These endings are both blessing and destruction. But, I think it\u2019s the inevitability of it all that brings with it a sense of uneasy peace.<\/p>\n Though Mc Donnell appears mostly whelmed, there is some degree of urgency to his words. \u201cWhat We Know So Far Is the first steps to madness \/ \u2026 quickly slip into species-specific syntax\u201d (22, lines 1, 3). We, as sentient creatures, act as though our hands are tied between the real, the observable, and the mind. Mc Donnell laments over how those distinctions are very rarely all that clear.<\/p>\n I crack a joke \u2014 what we don\u2019t know can\u2019t kill me \u2014 Have you forgotten already how you told me: He challenges us to ask for truth and seek the humour from this mess of a guessing game we call science. What We Know So Far Is\u2026 seems to argue that there is no one formula for anything, no matter how hard we try to study, categorize, explain, predict, and make sense of things. It\u2019s in this obscurity that both anxiety and beauty lie.<\/p>\n The verses crescendo and decrescendo cyclically. Somehow, Mc Donnell captures all of humanity into a mere 85 pages, but he also captures all of speech as well.<\/p>\n Words cower in the long grass of language, Though we meet many figures, both real and created, toward the end of this poem, Mc Donnell leaves us with an aphorism: \u201csuffering explains everything. everything is re-unmade\u201d (82). Despite his apparent nihilism, I perceive an ounce of optimism here. Suffering, though wretched, is an indicator of life. Its\u2019 absence means we have returned again to the earth, contributing and giving way to the next that comes to exist, in whatever form that takes.<\/p>\n Mc Donnell covers a substantial amount of intellectual and poetic ground in What We Know So Far Is\u2026. Though his account is realistic and refrains from sugar coating some of the ugliest of the world\u2014from forest fires to automotive accidents, to the slow takeover of dementia and its impact on families\u2014his account is grounded and refreshing with honesty. He\u2019s told a tale that I think only he could tell.<\/p>\n Such is the cycle of us all as we \u201cre-enter the engine-hum of nature\u201d (83). With and without these truths, we are all doomed to the same ecological fate. Perhaps we should embrace it for what it is. And what it is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poetry Review What We Know So Far Is\u2026 by Connor McDonnell The universality and ineffability of birth, life, and death, have and continue to be (to no ones surprise) some of the most tempting subjects for the poet. Both like and quite unlike the poet, birth, life, and death are equally important subjects for the physician. But the hospital,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4951"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5399,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951\/revisions\/5399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Connor McDonnell<\/p>\n
\nPerhaps one of the most illustrative passages of Mc Donnell\u2019s thesis lies in Autumn and the harvest. Summed together in the Irish \u201cF\u00f3mhar\u201d (15, line 1) Mc Donnell says \u201cAutumn, \/ you think, Fall, \/ as in: We harvest what autumns from the trees\u201d (15, lines 2-4). All the while, we<\/p>\n
\ntheir father, an organ donor, \u2026
\nOne word
\nHarvest
\nscrawled in sharpie. (18, lines 1-2, 7-9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nbut this is no laughing matter now
\n(what doesn\u2019t kill me still knows where I live)\u2026<\/p>\n
\nthis isn\u2019t worth the worry,
\nmost likely, it\u2019s just in my head?..
\nDo you think cure \/will be word or formula? (50, lines 14-16, 19-21, 24-25).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nOne calls out across the ocean,
\nanother ushers sky away.
\nSpace is formed in barometer\u2019s forge of pain and a separation.
\nFor those who shed memory of gravity
\nthe cave they project is a portal granting entry to our homes (75, lines 1-5).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nSlip blades of whispered-phrase before striking
\nWhen the he[a]rd (ignorant and illiterate)
\nIs seen and grammatically gored (19, lines 4-7).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n