How is poetry and prose beneficial to your mental health?
Poetry and Medicine by Audrey Shafer MD
Anesthesiology Clinics 40 (2022) 359–372; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anclin.2022.01.009; anesthesiology.theclinics.com; 1932-2275/22. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Key points:
- Poetry and medicine have multiple complex connections because they both can address difficult human experiences.
- Anesthesiology, including the arc of patient care and attention to rhythms and precision, has much in common with the poem, including arcs of thought, rhythms, pauses and resonances.
- Increasingly, access to reading and writing poetry has been found to decrease stress, enable reflection, and improve well-being.
How writing helps medical students and doctors handle stress by Holly MacCormick
Stanford Medicine & the Muse's Laurel Braitman discusses the mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers. Continue reading Scope 10k article. Published by Stanford Medicine, May 20, 2020.
Send us your original works
- Submissions (under 500 words please) can be emailed to pfsp@albertadoctors.org. Please put the phrase “poetry submission” in the subject field of the email.
- We will acknowledge receipt of your submission. If it is selected for publication, we will work with the editor of ADD to determine when it can be published.
- For further information or questions, please email pfsp@albertadoctors.org, and one of our team will get back to you.
Physician poetry submissions
Sit in the corner
Cold chair
Wait patiently
Posters on the wall
Mental health
Apnea
Help lines
Stare
Mind distressed
Body vibrates
Wonder if there is help
Hope and pray
Mother said go
She will know
To trust
This unknown
Should leave
Keep my secrets
In my soul
Doctor comes in
No white coat
Stethoscope
Seems normal
Voice calm
Looks me in the eye
Smiles
Listens
Ask questions
Silence
Space
Maybe mother was right
Maybe I can share
Maybe I can get help
Let’s start here
Sometimes it’s just, right,
Sometimes it’s corrupt, unfair,
Sometimes it loves like the summer sun on moist skin,
Sometimes it hurts like the bitter cold on icy toes,
Sometimes it hits like the rough waves on the rock,
Sometimes it caresses like the calm blue sea,
Sometimes its short, done in a blink,
Sometimes it declines ending, is lonely, sad,
Sometimes it’s filled with joy and laughter,
Sometimes it’s a pit of sorrow.
Always a mystery,
Who knows what one gets,
Yet this is life,
One worth the breath.
January:
Is it real? Is it real?
Do I have it? Never have I
Been so ill. Ever.
February:
Henny Penny the sky is falling
I see it coming like a cloud
Of locusts on the prairie horizon,
Warning others, it’s time to get
Your rations; They are not sure If
I’ve gone mad,
Neither am I.
March:
Coughing people stand too close,
Spewing droplets like glitter to hang in the air
And settle on surfaces.
A father laughs when his daughter coughs in my face,
I do not laugh in return.
Henny Penny
March Twenty, Twenty Twenty:
Everything stops.
Just like Henny Penny said.
Warriors wither in peace;
Swords rust in silence
Waters go blue without blood
Armies starve without violence
This serenity, this love
This is not a world for a survivor
Here they feel abandoned
Like a world-class navigator without a driver
Hard trains and thorny paths
Pain and suffering is their truth
They grew up in kill or die
Not a Yolo youth
They are no different;
There's nothing wrong with them
They usually come in handy during crisis
A true friend, a hidden gem
It's just that they don't know what love is
They never got to know
They were born in war
They matured; they didn't grow
Perfectionists, empaths,
Hyper-attenuated senses
They will seem to be prepared for everything
Hyperactive defenses
Let me tell you how they look like
They look like just about anyone, me or you
And when you recognize one
Give them the hug long due
They still have that child inside of them
They are still looking for love
They will look contained but are fragile
So maybe wear an empathetic glove
Please o please, I beg you
Let them into your homes
They are not as strong as they look
Coz strength was tortured into their bones
If I am abnormal,
are you normal?
If I am special,
are you ordinary?
If I am different,
are you all the same?
If I am shamed,
do you feel proud?
If I am alienated,
do you feel included?
If I seem inferior,
do you feel superior?
Is pity kindness?
Where I am tolerated, you are often accepted.
Where it is my privilege, it is often your right.
So maybe...
when I am told to conform,
something needs to change;
when I have abilities,
I can support your disabilities;
when I try to be like you,
it doesn’t make us stronger.
Maybe the things I have to give, you could receive.
Maybe kindness is ordinary, not heroic.
Maybe we are not opposites…
You and I both embody a part and a love.
You and I each have a story.
Our stories contain…
normal and abnormal,
special and ordinary,
difference and similarity.
With feelings of …
shame and pride,
alienation and inclusion,
inferiority and superiority.
And times of …
conformity and change,
ability and disability,
giving and receiving.
Our stories have moments of …
tolerance and acceptance,
pity and kindness,
privilege and right.
Our stories are all ordinary.
Our stories are all heroic.
If we come together,
we can share our stories.
We can use words that are softened and gracious.
We can be open and present.
Together we can be new kinds of normal.
And you will discover that
what I am is what you are.
The End
Glossary
Ability: Having a skill to do something
Abnormal: Unusual in a way that causes problems
Accept: To allow one to belong
Alienate: To make someone feel that they are different and not part of a group
Change: To be or do differently
Conform: To do what most other people do
Different: Not the same as others
Disability: An attribute (physical, cognitive, mental, sensory) of a person, that due to barriers created by various interactions, restricts full participation*
Embody: To be a symbol or example of something
Give: To provide someone with something wanted or needed
Gracious: To behave with respect and kindness
Hero: Courageous or self-sacrificing behaviour
Include: To make someone a part of something
Inferior: Attitude that one has less importance or value
Kind: Wanting to do good things and to bring happiness to others
Normal: Usual or ordinary
Open: Being honest and willing to listen and consider another point of view
Ordinary: Having no special or distinctive features
Pity: Sadness caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others
Present: Paying attention in the moment with another person**
Privilege: A benefit enjoyed by certain people but not others
Proud: Very happy and pleased because of something you have done
Receive: To be given and accept something
Right: Something a person should be allowed to have or do and not be taken away
Same: Exactly like someone else
Shame: To make someone feel unworthy of honour and respect
Soften: To become less harsh or extreme
Special: Better or greater than the usual person
Story: A description of important events in someone’s life
Superior: Attitude that one is better or more important than other people
Tolerate: To allow one to exist
Definitions adapted from Miriam-Webster’s Learner’s, Oxford and Cambridge Dictionaries.
* Adapted from ongoing research
** Adapted from mindfulness literature
Note from Dr. Klassen:
“I wrote it in response to tensions I have felt as I raise my children with disabilities. It invites reflection about the polarized positions we take in relation to others, specifically those with disabilities. While it offers no clear answers, “What I Am Is What You Are” suggests that cultural strength is found in both the fertility of difference and the appreciation of similarities; that it is our stories, when shared with love and openness, that have the power to connect us.”
Sad and lost
Not feeling great
Is life worth living
It’s up for debate
Let me help you
Let me be of aid
I’II do my best
Each and every day
Pick up your pieces
One by one
Carry the burden
Until it’s done
Feels so heavy
Cause it takes its toll
Too much weight
Getting out of control
Drowning
Gasping
Sink or swim
Nightmares
Blank stares
Too many cares
Mirror, mirror
Does not lie
Ask yourself if not a healer, who am I
Sorry friend
Can’t do it no more
Wish you only the best
Grateful but need time to rest
One day, you wake
And time has passed
Clouds are gone
Sunshine at last
No longer trapped, now you’re flying
Tears of joy instead of crying
Hand in hand with ones in need
Peace once lost has returned, indeed
Her internal world
Was all swirled
Into a cosmically coloured chaos
Of the grandest proportions
Her voice was lost
Amid all the rumblings
Of a mind gone astray
Of a mind gone away
But she, who was so sick
Came back real quick
So fast she surprised everyone
Including herself
Gone was the guide
Pulling her aside
Yes, gone was the navigator
She was on her own once again
Forever is an eternity
And an eternity of respite was too much to ask
So she prayed for strength of will
To down all the pills
She asked to accept the consequences
Of chemical modification
Asking that someday in heaven or hell
She'd be left alone with her mind naturally quelled
Because suffering must not last a lifetime
She hoped that life didn’t work that way
At least that's what she implored
As she sat screaming on the ward’s cold floor
Never to have roamed this wild beautiful earth
Never to have been blessed with the presence of normalcy
She wished for a dreamless sleep
She wished for a world with a compassionate saviour’s keep
A month ago
Elsa awakened elemental spirits.
I watched with my daughters
on the big screen.
Snuggled close. Scooched in.
No hands washed. No sanitizer. Snacking on popcorn,
licking butter off fingers,
sharing water bottles,
savouring sour cherries.
Today, Into the Unknown
plays as I drive to work,
like an anthem calling me;
an echo off houses that shudder
with silence.
A blue mask, gloves and yellow gown,
passengers to my stethoscope.
As spring awakens
the playgrounds are wrapped
in a yellow bow
not a gift, but barriers.
Eliot did say April is the cruelest month,
mixing memory and desire.
The thought of children laughing,
the wish to see them playing.
The bright sun rises over hoodoos
as it did once for dinosaurs,
now extinct.
A sun that sparks
fears of crowds
who don’t believe
this is happening.
Human beings forget
how bodies are fallible
until disease stops the
easy rhythm of doing things
over and over and
over again.
Bring on Elsa’s winter.
Snowstorms now
welcomed weather,
the whited hills cleaner,
the river stiff with ice.
Delaying travel, shutting friends out,
a forced pause in time
stopping the spread.
Because this isn’t a Disney movie.
Nobody will ride a mythical
water spirit or shield our town
from an inevitable threat.
The cough will come and ring
until they stop breathing.
When faced with the unknown,
we will don our masks, if we have some.
Put on our gloves, if they can be found.
Change into gowns, if they aren’t gone.
And ignore the voice yelling
hope is gone.
We’ll rise and quite simply
do the next right thing.
Then one day
we’ll reconvene and recollect,
how something intangible,
something so small
became so big, and ensured that
life would never be
quite the same
ever
again.
The following poem, Oath, is of the genre “found poems”.
Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.
The poem Oath is Dr. Roth’s original writing using the Hippocratic Oath.
I hold an oath
swear to impart
carry out
my art
and livelihood
I need
and want
to do no harm
injustice is
poison
will my ability
to
administer judgement
benefit patients
or fee regimens?
I will not harm
we break bodies
what should
be holy
witnesses to
keep
pure
I enter
indenture
outside what
my family
will ever
hear published
I hold
the knife
and stone
teach my art
abstain
not abusing
what should not be
my life
my art
opposite men
Shop talk done
smooth back the hospital sheet
add a warm blanket
tuck your feet in
add another
gather water
no ice
for the side table
we amble through the photos
on your phone
lambing season
at the family farm
your great-granddaughter
beaming
in her red rubber boots
fifteen minutes overtime
and yet
the highlight
of my day
there are days
when the mosquito buzz saw
vibrating through my head
sounds better
than the perpetual drone
of the worried well
that fumble and fidget
in front of me
caught
lean in
eye contact
mute
furrowed brow
head nod
reassurance
deception
a safe
monotonous
consistent
isolated
place
tinnitus
a wall of
unrelenting
noise
I can no longer
climb over
I work hard
keep the balance of want and need
to remain alive
comfortable
safe
clinging to the back of a chronic malady that has stripped the body
and mind of its host
my host
who painfully withers away
death means moving on
change that I would rather not have
at this moment
gluttonous
my being has
danced, sung, chased fantasies
visions of grandeur
built a kingdom for my progeny
who flourish
bear fruit
heroic or
opportunistic altruism
symbiotic
or parasitic
the seduction of concession
satiated
I sleep well
dream
often
The trouble with death is the mystery
The trouble with death is love’s letting go
Photographs and history
All that’s left
and that’s all we know
The trouble with death is unforgiving
The trouble with death is that chances slip by
Such a short time that we’re living
We barely have time
to wonder why
Holding your hand
Touching your hair
To see your face and feel your breath
One more chance to clear the air…
The trouble with death is it comes so sudden
The trouble with death is the waiting game
Try to change it when it’s coming
It chooses the time
just the same
The trouble with death is the leaving
The trouble with death is a whole lot of pain
The people who stay to do the grieving
Wishing and praying
they’ll see you again