Poetry and medicine, it seems, don’t have much in common, but sometimes appearances can be deceptive. Friedrich Schiller not only composed extensive ballads, he was also a trained regimental medic. Gottfried Benn not only practiced as a doctor, but also made his experience in pathology on the subject of the lyric cycle “Morgue”.
As a third member of the group (with due distance to the classics) the Linz palliative medicine specialist David Fuchs is now introducing himself with the volume of poetry “Handbuch der Pflanzenkrankheiten” (Handbook of Plant Diseases). As a novelist, Fuchs has already gained some fame (“Before we disappear”, “Leichte Boden”) and his poems were honored with the 2018 Feldkirchen Poetry Prize for good reason. Because Fuchs proves to be a very precise, language-conscious and deeply ironic author. He picks up – among other things from older works on botany – language patterns that are similar to medical language patterns of the present, for example when a “Garden Lexicon” from 1751 reports about the “tree cancer”, which can spoil an entire tree if it is bad not remedied in time. People and plants are spoken of using the same metaphors, the elementary processes of becoming, prospering, perishing and perishing become comparable. From the subtle texts of the doctor David Fuchs we feel the gentle coldness of an illusion-free naturalism, which – in contrast to the Morgue poems by Gottfried Benn – never turns cynical.
For some texts, however, Benn may have already given the impetus. So follows the poem “Die wrankkrankheit” in gesture and rhythm Benn’s “Man and woman go through the crab barracks”.
The subtle contexts of meaning in David Fuchs ?? Poetry is probably only accessible to readers who are familiar with medical terminology and the field of medicine. Regardless of this, the “Handbook of Plant Diseases” is not specialist literature for doctors and gardeners.
The intensity of this poetry is conveyed to everyone who likes modern poetry, and the delicate illustrations by the artist ZHON also make the book a bibliophile delight.
David Fuchs: “Handbook of Plant Diseases”, poems, Haymon Verlag, 130 pages, 22.90 euros
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