One of the two poetic modes Patel has tried is “the tight lace lyric” with a “formal subtlety, refinement of language and care for precision” (Ayyappa Paniker). The poetic discourse takes a general pattern – the first line or lines forming the topic sentence as in a prose discourse, which is followed by a painstaking illustration, elaboration or reconsideration of the opening statement. “Public Hospital” (How Do You Withstand, Body) is typical of this mode.
The poet-persona’s initiation into the medical profession with all its demands and responsibilities is elaborated with harsh documentary details and an irony which cuts at many directions – at himself, the people and the profession. This is one of the many poems where the doctor’s perception forms the life within the poem.
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11.4- 7: A busy doctor’s profile is drawn with sharp irony.
11.8- 9: The doctor’s’ ministrations are talked about in the violent images. Patients are only “bodies”.
11.10-13: Here the irony is directed at the patients
11.14-16: Under the feigned callousness, there is Patel’s; typical humanism. Sentimentality is fastidiously avoided through the realistic and documentary mode.
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11.17-26: Note the use of words of violence to denote the doctor’s closeness to suffering humanity — “plunge” “splice” “wreck”. One cannot find a more “unillusioned” account of the doctor’s profession in Indian English poetry!
11.27-30 a fitting end to the wry discourse on the doctor’s function and his bond with his patients.