The Art of Touch is a remarkable collection of essays and poems on the motivations, transformations, catastrophes, and beauty that lie in human touch. The authors, who are poets, novelists, psychotherapists, and scientists, provide a full range of contemplations on their personal experience of touch, ranging from the terror of physical touch to the most recent advances in the study of touch by a neuroscientist. The pandemic has forced upon us the issue of the dangers of being touched by anyone and of touching something anyone else might have touched. We all know the dehumanizing effects of this situation just as we know the joy and beauty of touch with those we love. The reader will find that he or she is deeply touched by this book.--Thomas H. Ogden, psychoanalyst "author of This Will Do"
In a time of pandemic, touch is a risk and a luxury. Touch informs life not only as an intimacy but also as a teacher. Thanks to the editors of this vivid anthology for gathering writers' accounts that remind us of connections in crisis, help us laugh and grieve, and allow us finally to be touched.--Hilda Raz "author of Letter from a Place I've Never Been: New and Collected Poems, 1986-2020"