ABSTRACT
William Empson’s signal work on ambiguity in poetry, Seven Types of Ambiguity, is used as a hermeneutic through which to interpret the work of three Canadian poet-physicians (Bahar Orang, Tolu Oloruntoba, and Tamar Rubin). We take ambiguity as resource rather than hindrance. The act of close-reading poetry (as seen in its demonstration) is a connection-making and weighing exercise as well as a generative process. Close-reading poetry to fashion constellations of meaning avoids the binaristic, collapsing imperatives of biomedical diagnosis and evidence-based action in favour of differentials and formulation. Biomedicine, which is our friend, is given its due but poetry is shown to be a parallel process that dances alongside, providing an alternative ontology in clinical spaces.
