News at Eleven: "I have had bones die and bowels fail;

joints lock in my face and arms and legs, so that I could not eat, could not walk," Mr. [Christian] Wiman writes. He has had cancer packed so densely into his marrow that it distended his bones.

Hurt, fury and fear have concentrated this man's prose. Mr. Wiman lays bare that moment no one hopes to confront soon, "when death leans over to sniff you, when massive unmetaphorical pain goes crawling through your bones, when fear--goddamn fear, you can't get rid of it--ices your spine."

from The New York Times: Turning a Dark Place Into a Beacon of Discovery

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