Glenn Colquhoun: Playing God

Reviewed by PENELOPE BIEDER*

A new collection from Northland doctor Glenn Colquhoun has an increasingly assured poetic voice querying a marked ambivalence towards the practice of medicine. While his day job has meant "the most intense and beautiful views of human life" it has also terrified him by revealing his limitations - "the god of medicine's ability to deal so arbitrarily with our existence". He feels a fraud, he knows he cannot fix everything. He is "a human being with a little bit of science and a lot of doubts".

These interesting, revealing poems are a conversation between his doubt and his undoubted love for his work. In his introduction he thanks his patients for their trust and kindness, their vulnerability, laughter and entertainment - "you have no idea how many times you have healed me".

Very quickly we learn that there is great irony in the book's title, and a sort of gentle ruefulness as well. This doctor's intense, almost fragile self-awareness must make him a caring, empathetic person to see in a time of stress. And while it may be his Achilles heel in terms of his general practice that is what makes these poems so heartbreaking and beautiful.

The first and largest section of poems is called Patients I Have Known. He charts the world of human frailty, the optimism that is sometimes unwarranted, the physical assaults made on the body and the mind by a variety of serious illnesses, the agony of treating very ill children. He is unafraid of staring down death; he understands too well the ephemeral nature of life itself.

Eight poems on Parkinson's disease dedicated to his father are stunning in their bare honesty; a group of 10 poems headed Diseases I Have Known charts the sudden or the slow progress of strokes, heart attacks, arthritis and more. A further three groups of poetry are called Spells, A Portrait of the Doctor as a Young Man and Playing God.

These poems may be sad, but they are also immensely clever, funny, kind and life-affirming. Their warm humanity and compassion counterpoint the always tough business of medical diagnosis. They are accompanied by black and white drawings ranging from Hogarth to an anatomical plate of an amputation from 1665.

Steele Roberts, $24.95

* Penelope Bieder is a freelance writer.