Poet and memoirist Christian Wiman has had a rare form of cancer for 18 years. "When death hangs over you for a while, you start to forget about it," he says. Wiman's new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. Also, David Bianculli reviews the return of Monk in a new movie on Peacock. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Terry Gross.
I want to start by quoting how my guest, Christian Wyman, describes an essay he wrote back in 2008, 2007.
He says it was about despair, losing the ability to write, falling in love, receiving a diagnosis of an incurable cancer, having my heart ripped apart by what?
Slowly and in spite of all my modern secular instincts, I learned to call God.
The themes of cancer, enduring unendurable pain, living on the edge of death, and searching for an understanding of God and faith have remained central to Wyman's essays and poems.
That's reflected in some of his book titles.
His 2013 memoir with poems is titled my bright meditation of a modern believer.
His new book is called zero at the bone, 50 entries against despair.
It's part memoir and part a collection of his poems and poems by others related to the book's themes.
Wyman was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when he turned 39.
He's now 57.
Over those nearly two decades, he's endured many rounds of chemo, a bone marrow transplant and several experimental therapies.
He's in remission as of last spring.
He grew up in a small town in west Texas where everyone identified as Christian.
His family belonged to an evangelical church.