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Through the Door<\/em> is a collaborative project involving Archives for London<\/em> and Poet in the City.<\/em> Six poets have been commissioned to create new works based on archives that include those of St Paul\u2019s Cathedral and The British Library.<\/p>\n This week I attended a reading from the selection of poems – The Bone Ship<\/em> – that the poet Mario Petrucci created from his exploration of the archives of The Royal College of Surgeons of England.<\/p>\n The archives contain not only records of the College\u2019s activity, but also hold many collections of letters, diaries (including those of grave robbers), photographs and drawings relating to medicine and surgery from the 16th<\/sup> to the 20th<\/sup> century. The patient files of the First World War plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies are also part of the archive.<\/p>\n Mario Petrucci is impressively not only a renowned poet, but also an ecologist and a PhD physicist. The 11 poems that constitute The Bone Ship<\/em> address issues around war wounds and facial reconstruction during WW1, venereal disease amongst British troops in India, radical surgical techniques, as well as grave digging and body snatching.<\/p>\n Subtitled \u2018Poetry and Anatomy\u2019, Petrucci\u2019s poetry extends beyond the physical aspects of the operative procedure and the confines of the human body:<\/p>\n \u2018Much of the archive material I studied drew a deeply complex, visceral response\u2019 (p.69)<\/p>\n As a result, the poems evoke much compassion around and within the stark language – \u2018enucleate\u2019, \u2018excise\u2019, \u2018snipped\u2019, \u2018stripped\u2019 \u2013 of surgery.<\/p>\n From Surgical love<\/em>:<\/p>\n This breast dissected<\/p>\n to beached ribs. My bone ship.<\/p>\n Heart bails alone for you its last salt heat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hip and thigh.<\/p>\n That softer flesh. To cinerator.<\/p>\n Crematorium. Dust and ash. And oh<\/p>\n <\/p>\n in their jars these parts so prolonged. But<\/p>\n the sum shall throng in you<\/p>\n wherever you are.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And from Methods<\/em>:<\/p>\n Kneel or recline<\/p>\n for tests that long to bless – what in moderation<\/p>\n <\/p>\n we tolerate must heal in excess.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Also in Methods<\/em>, Petrucci clearly demonstrates the capacity of poetry to uniquely convey what might otherwise be ineffable:<\/p>\n Malign cells that fraternize<\/p>\n to dominance in cervix, larynx, skin.<\/p>\n Petrucci speaks of a \u2018textual music\u2019 in his poetry, which facilitates an understanding that is not dependent on literal meaning. The power of sound within The Bone Ship<\/em> is perhaps most apparent in P 56<\/em>, the title reflecting the number of the record recounting the surgeon John Hunter\u2019s transplant of a human tooth into the comb of a cockerel:<\/p>\n Did those jelly-blood<\/p>\n <\/p>\n teeth in their leather-red comb dryly pliantly rough to touch<\/p>\n wobble with undervalued pain as much as<\/p>\n <\/p>\n the congealed curls of these girls unhealed?<\/p>\n Similarly in Bullets<\/em>:<\/p>\n Palpate for a thrill.<\/p>\n With stethoscope hear the bruit.<\/p>\n Exert your will.<\/p>\n The Bone Ship<\/em> arose from the exploration of an archive, yet it\u00a0is also about more than history in its consideration of us as embodied beings and as it delves into the suffering that our humanness can entail.<\/p>\n Petrucci speaks of the \u2018porous membranes between poetry and science\u2019, which The Bone Ship<\/em> successfully explores. There have been similar collaborative projects, including the collection sequences and pathogens<\/em>, which arose from a \u2018Poetry Meets Biomedical Science\u2019 venture between poets and scientists, and also includes works from Mario Petrucci.<\/p>\n The poetry collection Pocket Horizon <\/em>contains the works of seven poets and was inspired by objects from the history of science and medicine, for example Richard Barnett\u2019s That the Heart is a Fist<\/em> based on one of the original 1815 stethoscopes:<\/p>\n Beating, pounding, pumping \u2013 such hard words,<\/p>\n So plump, so tense with action<\/p>\n A dialogue between poetry, medicine and science is an important one, each discipline potentially illuminating the other and enhancing our ability to understand our experiences. In Sylvia Plath\u2019s The Surgeon at 2 a.m.<\/em>, the poet writes from the perspective of a surgeon who sees the patient not as a person but as the sum of her body parts:<\/p>\n It is a garden I have to do with\u2014tubers and fruits<\/p>\n Oozing their jammy substances,<\/p>\n A mat of roots.<\/p>\n Removed body parts \u2013 \u2018pathological salami\u2019 \u2013 are \u2018entombed in an icebox\u2019.<\/p>\n Poetry can redress imbalance and restore equilibrium. There is a danger in the dialogue between poetry and disciplines such as medicine and science that the conversation veers to one side. The \u2018porous membranes\u2019 that Petrucci so eloquently describes need to allow for a bi-directional flow, thus ensuring that all\u00a0mutually benefit from the exchange.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n