Reviews

The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes (Pavilion Poetry) by Lieke Marsman, Sophie Collins

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hartereads's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.0

foggy_rosamund's review against another edition

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4.0

This short book contains 10 poems, one long essay, and a series of letters from Sophie Collins, the translator, to Lieke Marsman, the author. Each element is very strong: the poems evoke the fear and despair of being diagnosed with an illness -- in this case, cancer -- and explore disability as a politcal issue. It's rare to read work the centres the political implications or disability and ableism, and Marsman writes about this in an insightful way. She touches on similar themes in her essay, which is in part a memoir of her diagnosis with a rare form of cancer at the age of 26. She discusses the way in which the disabled body becomes a political pawn, and the ways in which ableist society cannot empathise with disability. Collins' letters add an interesting dimension to the discussion -- they discuss the female body in pain, and what it means to be a woman translating a woman. I liked this book very much, but I wanted it to be longer, and my only frustration with it was that it felt too dense, and I wanted the issues raised to be explored more fully. Still, I recommend this.

nenaveenstra's review against another edition

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5.0

Even huilen nu.

Content Warnings

suzanneke's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

darice's review against another edition

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4.0

Lieke Marsman got diagnosed with cancer and wrote about that period and about politics. It's like she looked in my soul and wrote how I feel about being chronically ill and also about politics. Years ago, I read a poetry bundle of hers, De Eerste Letter. Her work is in my humble opinion, brilliant.

"God, geef ons het zelfvertrouwen
van een middelmatige witte man"