Circumnavigation – by Cathy Altmann
 

 

What is extraordinary about this book is Cathy Altmann's dispassionate observation of her journey through breast cancer, which she then represents in lines of limpid brilliance. It is not resignation she writes from but something far more interesting - a visionary awareness that weighs and transforms the essential moments into this unexpected, associative poetry.

Not a word is wasted. Her exactness makes medicine seem imprecise. Her style explores minimalism with imagistic clarity and brief fable-like flashes. There is even a kind of mortal wit underlying the poignancy of loss and recovery. The poems are modest yet marvellous. The book is a revelation.

- Philip Salom