As a heart surgeon, Richard MacArthur often found himself with a person's life hanging in the balance. As a father, he experienced the first flutter of existence with the arrival of his children. As an American, he was forced to make sense of the fatal attacks of so many of his countrymen. "More Connections" gathers the poems he has written over the decades to process those events and many others.

From the pump and push of blood on the operating table to a threatening personal diagnosis, this absorbing collection reveals one man under the harsh glare of his most defining moments. In his...

Richard MacArthur, MD, understands the power poetry has to reflect life in all its joy, love, and unexpected pain. In Some More Connections, MacArthur's third book of verse, he digs deep into his personal life to produce a new collection of poignant, powerful poems.

MacArthur's verses run the gamut of human emotions, from the sweetest phases of love to the challenges of dealing with a debilitating disease. No subject is too small or too grand to escape MacArthur's pen-he jumps effortlessly from the loss of a beloved pet to pride in his country's history and from memories of...