Daniel talks with Martha Serpas, author of the poetry collection "The Diener." A diener is a person who works in a morgue, handling and cleaning the corpse. Martha, who is also a trauma hospital chaplain at Tampa General Hospital, talks about her conversations with the hospital's diener, and how their respective jobs influenced the works in this collection. The book not only touches on death, but on the destruction of the Gulf Coast wetlands.
In this extended online-only interview, Martha discusses the parallels between death and the erosion of the wetlands. She also explains why a chaplain's job isn't necessarily there to comfort one's suffering, but to help them be present to what's happening around them.
http://www.marthaserpas.com/index.html
Aired Feb. 8, 2015.