Cancer Stories: The Art Of Oncology

Listen to Journal of Clinical Oncology's Art of Oncology poem, "Transcription: Phone Call, 2018” by Elane Kim, a student at Harvard College. The poem is followed by an interview with Kim and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Kim shares her poem that lingers in the spaces between words; a mother and daughter navigating illness and memory. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Transcription: Phone Call, 2018, by Elane Kim Spiculated mass, irregular contours. Can you come to translate these words? Something in the lung. Yes, I am eating well.   Birds, green ones, are nesting outside the window. Singing as if they aren’t young but dying. Lately, I have been singing.   Since we last spoke, the snow has melted into pearls. Rare and pale, glittering like it’s the last time you’ll ever see it. Will you come see it?   In Korea, we say magpies bring good luck. I dreamt of one the last night I slept well. Though you are my daughter, I feel like   a child. In our language, the word for cancer comes from the character for mouth