"Ellen West" by Frank Bidart

This searing poem alternates between the perspective of Ellen West, a woman dying from anorexia nervosa, and doctors at a psychiatric clinic where she is undergoing treatment. Read the poem here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. implication
    a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred
    Why am I a girl?

    I ask my doctors, and they tell me they
    don’t know, that it is just “given.”

    But it has such
    implications
  2. deteriorate
    become worse or disintegrate
    Now, at the beginning of Ellen’s thirty-second year, her physical condition has deteriorated still further.
  3. circumspect
    careful to consider potential consequences and avoid risk
    They didn’t wear wedding rings.

    Their behavior was circumspect. They discussed
    politics. They didn’t touch ...
  4. indulgent
    given to yielding to the wishes of someone
    They did this
    again and again, with pleased looks, indulgent
    smiles, for each course,
    more than once for each dish—;
    much too much for just friends ...
  5. loathe
    dislike intensely; feel disgust toward
    I saw that the “natural” process of aging

    is for one’s middle to thicken—
    one’s skin to blotch;

    as happened to my mother.
    And her mother.
    I loathed “Nature.”
  6. stoutly
    in a resolute manner
    Previously she had stoutly resisted this on the ground that she did not really eat but devoured like a wild animal.
  7. perseverance
    the act of continuing or repeating
    Says that her own poems are “hospital poems ... weak—without skill or perseverance; only managing to beat their wings softly.”
  8. agitation
    a mental state of extreme emotional disturbance
    February 8. Agitation, quickly subsided again.
  9. subside
    wear off or die down
    February 8. Agitation, quickly subsided again.
  10. component
    one of the individual parts making up a larger entity
    Homo-erotic component strikingly evident.
  11. vexation
    anger produced by some annoying irritation
    February 15. Vexation, and torment. Says that her mind forces her always to think of eating. Feels herself degraded by this.
  12. degraded
    lowered in value
    February 15. Vexation, and torment. Says that her mind forces her always to think of eating. Feels herself degraded by this.
  13. robust
    sturdy and strong in form, constitution, or construction
    The voice too then was enormous—
    healthy; robust; subtle; but capable of
    crude effects, even vulgar,
    almost out of
    high spirits, too much health ...
  14. obliterate
    remove completely from recognition or memory
    But soon she felt that she must lose weight,—
    that all she was trying to express

    was obliterated by her body
  15. insatiable
    impossible to fulfill, appease, or gratify
    —How her soul, uncompromising,
    insatiable,
    must have loved eating the flesh from her bones,

    revealing this extraordinarily
    mercurial; fragile; masterly creature ...
  16. mercurial
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    —How her soul, uncompromising,
    insatiable,
    must have loved eating the flesh from her bones,

    revealing this extraordinarily
    mercurial; fragile; masterly creature ...
  17. diminished
    made to seem smaller or less, especially in worth
    ... at first, it simply diminished
    in volume, in size,
    then the top notes became
    shrill, unreliable—at last,
    usually not there at all ...
  18. unreliable
    not worthy of trust
    ... at first, it simply diminished
    in volume, in size,
    then the top notes became
    shrill, unreliable—at last,
    usually not there at all ...
  19. ravenous
    extremely hungry
    Perhaps her mind,
    ravenous, still insatiable, sensed

    that to struggle with the shreds of a voice

    must make her artistry subtler, more refined,
    more capable of expressing humiliation,
    rage, betrayal ...
  20. betrayal
    an act of deliberate disloyalty
    Perhaps her mind,
    ravenous, still insatiable, sensed

    that to struggle with the shreds of a voice

    must make her artistry subtler, more refined,
    more capable of expressing humiliation,
    rage, betrayal ...
  21. manifest
    reveal its presence or make an appearance
    —Perhaps the opposite. Perhaps her spirit
    loathed the unending struggle

    to embody itself, to manifest itself, on a stage whose

    mechanics, and suffocating customs,
    seemed expressly designed to annihilate spirit ...
  22. annihilate
    kill in large numbers
    —Perhaps the opposite. Perhaps her spirit
    loathed the unending struggle

    to embody itself, to manifest itself, on a stage whose

    mechanics, and suffocating customs,
    seemed expressly designed to annihilate spirit ...
  23. bewilderment
    confusion resulting from failure to understand
    —I know that in Tosca, in the second act,
    when, humiliated, hounded by Scarpia,
    she sang Vissi d’arte
    —“I lived for art”—

    and in torment, bewilderment, at the end she asks,
    with a voice reaching
    harrowingly for the notes,

    “Art has repaid me LIKE THIS?”
  24. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    —I know that in Tosca, in the second act,
    when, humiliated, hounded by Scarpia,
    she sang Vissi d’arte
    —“I lived for art”—

    and in torment, bewilderment, at the end she asks,
    with a voice reaching
    harrowingly for the notes,

    “Art has repaid me LIKE THIS?”
  25. virtuosity
    great technical skill, fluency, or style
    I felt I was watching
    autobiography—
    an art; skill;
    virtuosity
  26. soprano
    the highest female voice; the voice of a boy before puberty
    miles distant from the usual soprano’s
    athleticism,—
    the usual musician’s dream
    of virtuosity without content ...
  27. trill
    a note that alternates with another note a semitone above it
    —She must know that now
    she probably would not do a trill in
    exactly that way,—
  28. inability
    lack of capacity to do something
    —I know that I am intelligent; therefore

    the inability not to fear food
    day-and-night; this unending hunger
    ten minutes after I have eaten ...
  29. demeaning
    causing someone to lose status or the respect of others
    half my mind says that all this
    is demeaning ...
  30. trivial
    (informal) small and of little importance
    —Then I think, No. The ideal of being thin

    conceals the ideal
    not to have a body—;
    which is NOT trivial ...
  31. intolerable
    incapable of being put up with
    This wish seems now as much a “given” of my existence

    as the intolerable
    fact that I am dark-complexioned; big-boned;
    and once weighed
    one hundred and sixty-five pounds ...
  32. anterior
    earlier in time
    This I is anterior
    to name; gender; action;
    fashion;
    MATTER ITSELF,—
  33. consultation
    a meeting to discuss a particular question or topic
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  34. prognosis
    a prediction of the course of a disease
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  35. therapeutic
    relating to or involved in the act of caring for someone
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  36. commitment
    the official act of consigning a person to confinement
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  37. emphatically
    in a forceful manner; with emphasis
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  38. neurosis
    a mental illness that makes you behave in an unusual way
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  39. psychosis
    severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost
    Result of the consultation: Both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than I. All three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis, and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible.
  40. compartment
    a partitioned section within a larger enclosed area
    In our compartment
    were ordinary people: a student;
    a woman; her child;—
  41. lethal
    of an instrument of certain death
    In the evening she takes a lethal dose of poison, and on the following morning she is dead.
  42. sterile
    incapable of reproducing
    ...each compromise, each attempt
    to poison an ideal
    which often seemed to me sterile and unreal,

    heightens my hunger.
Created on Fri Nov 17 11:40:51 EST 2017 (updated Fri Nov 17 12:02:27 EST 2017)

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