A Stranger's Heart: Poems by a Critical Care Physician

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With his debut poetry collection, A Stranger's Heart, Philip J. Cozzi joins the ranks of physician poets, enhancing this tradition and offering fresh perspectives of the patient and the curer. These poems shimmer, displaying imaginative range and verbal dexterity. Cozzi's acute sense of empathy informs his work, whether the speaker is contemplating an orange "waiting in a bowl on a kitchen island" or, more poignantly, preparing his beloved mother for her deathbed. In his poem, "Language Line," Cozzi writes: ". . . and you/lashed to the mast of the cell phone, / learn love translates to something carnal, /a drowning, a catastrophic craving." Reading this book is a tonic and an inspiration for us all.