Jack Coulehan is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine. Jack’s poems and essays appear frequently in health care journals and literary magazines, and his work is widely anthologized. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, including The Talking Cure: New and Selected Poems (2020).
PRAISE:
In his brilliant new collection of poems, Jack Coulehan opens up a world where doctors, scientists, poets, and prophets intersect. Writing at the height of his powers, Dr. Coulehan explores his curiosity about science and medical practice, the weight of the soul, the history of love etched into ancient bones, and his own aging body. Filled with characters from the past – Neanderthals, Chekhov, Vesalius, and others – Coulehan also raises modern concerns in his “Villanelle for American Hospitals.” And the poet tells us that Keats, “who hoped for hope when every hope was gone,” was once the poet’s “perfect brother.” After reading Leave My Soul Alone it is easy to agree with Coulehan’s self-assessment when he says, “Now I am his son.”
–Richard M. Berlin, MD, author of Tender Fences
Jack Coulehan’s poems explore the body in time and space with tactile, not abstract sensibility. The body of nature. Body of grief, hurt and broken heartedness. Body of family. Body of mindfulness. Body of imagination. Body of simplicity. Body of what he does not know. When he writes “the holy wind / that carries us along…” in “The Breath of Invisible People,” that image captures the finely made, quick-wit, humility and grace of Leave My Soul Alone; these poems welcome holy wind that moves through life. Each poem you read will carry you along and bring forth unexpected connections and surprises within yourself.
–John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine
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