Across the Border

Fiser, Karen

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Annotated by:
Aull, Felice
  • Date of entry: Apr-03-2000
  • Last revised: Jan-09-2010

Summary

The border of this short poem refers to the boundary separating the narrator both from those who are well, and from her own self before she became ill with a painful chronic disease. She is an "exile" who must tell stories about what life was like in another country (good health) in a perhaps idealized past.

Commentary

The poet is disabled with painful osteoarthritis. A number of other poems in this collection reflect on her experience (see also Pointing to the Place of the Pain in this database) and on other misfortunes of life (see The Short Song of What Befalls in this database).

Primary Source

Words Like Fate and Pain

Publisher

Zoland

Place Published

Cambridge, Mass.

Edition

1992