The Attending [Perfect Paperback] Matthew Mumber

Matthew Mumber writes in a long tradition of physician-poets, from Whitman to Keats to William Carlos Williams. Like these earlier models, Mumber exhibits acute attention to the body: its musculature, its sinews, the head, the heart. Mumber underscores the practice central to this knowledge, an ‘Attending’ that is as much a listening and a waiting as it is an act of care. He also extends these various, if difficult modes of attention to objects in the natural world, portraying flora, fauna, and the land itself with the same care he directs toward the patients under his charge. The poems in this collection thus attend in various senses of that word: they are conflicted and inclusive, vulnerable and precise―sharp as a surgeon’s knife.

Matthew Mumber, M.D., practices medicine as a board-certified radiation oncologist with the Harbin Clinic in Rome. After entering private practice, Matt attended and graduated from Dr. Andrew Weil’s fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona, where he met Rachel Remen and attended trainings on facilitation of physician-patient retreat groups through Commonweal. Subsequently, Matt attended and graduated from a 2-year program on spirituality at the Living School for Action and Contemplation through the Rohr Institute, where he studied with Jim Finley. An author of academic and lay press texts on the subject of healing, Matt has edited an academic textbook entitled Integrative Oncology: Principles and Practice and also co-wrote a lay-press health and wellness book, Sustainable Wellness with Heather Reed. He has served as the president of the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology. Matt’s poetry, which draws on his personal, professional, cultural and natural-world experiences, stems from his lectio divina meditation and spiritual practice. Matt has facilitated groups and retreats focused on transformation and healing for over twenty years. His first poetry book, in the Awakening Season, was published in 2020. He lives in Georgia with his wife and three sons.