SELF-PORTRAIT IN HOSPITAL AS CAMUS by SK Rancy

ISBN: 9781939728616; chapbook poetry collection, 6.5x8" paperback

Publication Date: April 2023

Author: SK Rancy

Location: Doha, Qatar and Richmond, Virginia

Distribution: Distributed by Diode Editions

 

Mediating on the absurd, the existential, and the sincere, the poems in Self-portrait In Hospital As Camus struggle with the futility of scientific and philosophical tenets of objectivity as framed by human suffering within the hospital’s walls. In vacillating between praising the wonder of human anatomy and scientific discovery while decrying the senselessness of man’s achievements and ambitions in the face of a meaningless and finite existence, this collection reaches its crescendo in the only reasonable apotheosis: if nothing matters, everything must.

 

"In the long line of physician-poets, this debut collection carries the freshest and most overtly philosophical voice, by turns gently surrealist, painfully realistic and stringently post-modernist. Rancy’s poems take on shapes as narrow as an Arizona string-tie and as broad as a prose poem dressed as a surgeon’s operative report. Their tone is as experimental as Rae Armantrout, as mischievous as Bolaño and as tender as Kay Ryan. They will entertain you and some will keep you up at night."

 

—Michael Salcman, M.D., editor of Poetry in Medicine and author of Shades & Graces: New Poems, inaugural winner of the Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize (2020)

 

SK Rancy is a writer born to Haitian immigrants in South Florida. He is a graduate of Columbia University, where he earned a BA in English & comparative literature and biology. His poetry has been longlisted for Button Poetry's Chapbook Contest, a finalist for Tupelo Quarterly's Poetry Prize, and has been published or is forthcoming in Columbia New Poetry, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Ars Medica, Apogee, Seventh Wave, Moko Magazine, Adirondack Review, Porridge Magazine, and Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language & Culture. His unpublished novel Beyond The Baths Of Stars was a semi-finalist for Black Lawrence Press’ Big Moose Prize and a finalist for the University of New Orleans’ Publishing Laboratory Contest. His debut full poetry collection, Dreams Of Diaspora, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2023. In his spare time, he is a surgical resident in Manhattan.