3-12-22: It is time for me to come to terms with this book. I have owned it for 7 years or more. Probably I registered it in BookCrossing in July of 2015 because I wanted to come to terms with it then. I am going to read selections and then let it go. There was ambivalent response to it from medical readers on Goodreads. One recommended this blog for current medical reading: https://storytellerdoc.blogspot.com

Later: I am so glad I took time after all for this book. Its stories and poems were compelling. Dr. Williams' powers of description are marvelous and I loved so many of his lines:

"I was a young man then--full of information and tenderness." (Page 61)

Over a decade has gone by since my father's death. He was a third generation physician. He, my grandfather and my great-grandfather surely had many experiences like these. All of these men, my fathers, were married to the art of medicine as Dr. Williams is. I'm glad that Dr. Williams had the second vocation of poetry. He records his time in medical history very poignantly.

This weekend in the Northeast US and here in the sunny South, the weather has stunned with its last gasp of winter brutality. Amidst all of this, I found the next reader of this book. It will go forth soon to grant a wish. I love to be the book fairy. If only I could be the weather fairy too.

Releasing this book in the darkness of a bitter winter morning, I am reminded of perhaps my favorite story here, "A Night In June," Page 61. There birth and love come from the darkness as spring comes from winter. MmeClinton and I have both had a weekend of winter stress. I found this frank book reassuring while enduring this cold snap. I hope MmeClinton will find it as comforting as I did.

Just received this RABCK from Cordelia-Anne in Georgia, along with a delightful message on a lovely postcard. I have read the journal entries and feel quite lucky to have been chosen as the next reader for this book! I am looking forward to it, as spring begins to unfold its beauties! Thank you!

Review: The Doctor Stories (William Carlos Williams) I knew that William Carlos Williams was a well-known poet, but I didn't know that he was concurrently a very dedicated medical doctor in the poorest part of Paterson, New Jersey. His heart was in his writing, especially poetry, and yet to earn a living, he pursued this medical path. Through his experiences with under served patients with widely different backgrounds, often underpaid or not paid at all, he felt glimpses of the human reality that would inform his work. There is a great forward by Robert Coles and a sweet afterword by his son, and a selection of stories/poems/autobiographical comments which show care as well as frustration towards the humanity he encounters. Had he been just a literary figure, surely his body of writings would have been completely different, but had he been just a physician to the poor, his soul would have withered. As a doctor, he was "kind and understanding underneath, but bluntly practical and unsentimental". "If I did not have
verse
I would have died
or been
a thief

on the bench near the entrances