Book review: Sumac’s Red Arms

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 5, June 2010, Page 266 News
By: Willem R. Vroom, MD

By Karen Shklanka. Coteau Books, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-55050-402-6. Paperback, 87 pages. $16.95.

Dr Karen Shklanka is a Vancouver family physician, poet, and Argentine tango afficionada. She has published in numerous magazines, and Sumac’s Red Arms is her first published book.

This collection of poems reflects on her rural medicine experience as well as her extensive travel.

The privilege of practicing medicine allows us to share our patients’ secrets, triumphs, and tragedies. It is true talent to be able to skillfully record those observations in prose, let alone poetry. 

Dr Shklanka does so with the light and shade of a well-performed tango. Well done! Felicidades Tanguero!
—WRV

Willem R. Vroom, MD. Book review: Sumac’s Red Arms . BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 5, June, 2010, Page(s) 266 - News.


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