Abstract
Peter Pereira is a family physician and a poet. I weave excerpts from Dr. Pereira's poems into a brief history of medicine's mythological and historical roots, beginning with the Egyptian god Thoth, and the Greek physician Hippocrates. Along the way, I touch on the European Middle Ages and the Islamic World. Finally, I quote poet-critic T.S. Eliot, who was an early influence on Dr. Pereira's decision to become a poet, and contemporary physician-poets Rafael Campo and William Carlos Williams. I end by placing Dr. Pereira, whose practice is oriented toward immigrant families, in his indigenous Pacific Northwest, arguing that being both physician and poet helps Pereira to live in a world that is both intimately human and naturally impersonal.
Highlights
Peter Pereira is a physician who has lived in Seattle, WA. for most of his life
One of a growing number of doctors who balance the craft of medicine with poetry's intuitive tropes, Pereira begins this first collection with a poem titled "Nosophilia," which means "love of affliction." Why begin here? "How else count, recount what woes?/Pimples that burn
Very palpable to a doctor, is loss. Because this state of emptiness can begin even before birth, Pereira initiates the body of his book with a poem titled "Fetus Papyraceous."
Summary
Peter Pereira is a physician who has lived in Seattle, WA. for most of his life. He did his undergraduate work in both Biology and English, before attending the University of Washington Medical School.
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