The Scars, Aligned (A Cancer Narrative), Brad Buchanan’s new book of poems, follows his amazing yet terrifying journey through the many phases of a cancer patient’s experience: uncertainty, paranoia, diagnosis, acceptance, expectancy, crisis, treatment, and finally recovery. The narrative working through these poems is a powerful and universal one, but Buchanan’s unique relationship to language (whether it be medical terms, the work of classic poets, or the details of an intensely lived physical and emotional ordeal) make this book far more than a mere succession of unfortunate events. These poems will drag you headlong into heaven and hell, then put you back down gently, with a new gratitude for everyday things. If surviving cancer is worthwhile, then this book is worth reading. And re-reading.
