The Poetics and Politics of Disease in the Poetry of Jo Shapcott

Abstract

References to disease, illness, sickness are recurrent in English; British and American, poetry due to living in epochs of anxiety that result in various types of physical and psychological diseases. Thus, in their different attempts to cope with such issue which directly affects people's way of living, way of thinking, and way of behaving, poets put their fingers on the problem of how to accepting, or not accepting the notion of being diseased. Some poets chose to commit suicide as a means of escape from being sick, whereas others preferred to accept their illness in all its consequences. Bearing this in mind, this paper aims to shed light on Jo Shapcott's special method of dealing with disease in her poetry, mainly, her "Mad Cow Poems." It is to find out a new perspective of accepting the notion of getting sick as a means of 'the new normal,' via finding creativity through and in illness.