Taking the History
By Watts, David '62

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These poems move easily between the mysteries of the body and the mysteries of the poem. The poet's voice - be it dark or light - is one the reader can trust implicitly.

With metaphors both skillful and provocative, David Watts not only asks questions of the body, but in the making of these fine poems, obtains some of the answers.
    --John Stone, M.D., poet and cardiologist

These poems are compelling and compassionate.
   --Maxine Kumin, poet

One of the core tasks of twentieth century poetry has been the widening of poetic circumference: the bringing of new terrain into a knowledge attainable only through the gate of awakened words. Physician and poet David Watts fulfills this task impressively in Taking the History. Here both the meeting of healer and patient and the meeting of technology and the mysteries of the body are deftly and precisely awakened in poems of clarity, a properly humble wisdom, and emotional range.
   --Jane Hirshfield, poet

David Watts has the eye, ear and heart of a poet and, just as importantly for this book, the poetic subject that allows him to use his considerable powers to their fullest - the human body with all its frailty and strength - as a metaphor for our existence.

With linguistic precision for image and phrase that recalls William Carlos Williams -"Plum blossoms on the ground / like frost flakes. And my friend lies still / in the ICU..." - David Watts convinces the reader that "the body needs a washing out" and that "the heart can harm itself," leaving us with the recognition that our body is the world and the world is our body.

I love these poems for presenting the horrifying fragility of our existence and the incredible resilience and strength with which we meet our individual fates.
   --Len Roberts, poet