Poetry as an antidote
Poetry ...
Just imagine if_ ...
Art ...
Taking time ...
Poetry ... Just imagine if_ ... Art ... Taking time ...
About the events
As clinicians and others working for many years in the NHS we may find ourselves adapting to the culture and surviving by narrowing our attention, with a tendency to focus on, tasks, protocols, efficiency, metrics and risk management.
Working under these conditions for many years, we can lose contact with ambiguity, grief, tenderness, awe, moral complexity, the subjective reality of our patient’s lives and our own inner worlds. The very stuff that makes us human and helps us to be humans together. It’s likely that this separation from the lives of those we are caring for and our own personal human needs, contributes to clinician disillusionment and burnout.
Poetry can act like an antidote to this narrowing of focus and broaden ways of paying attention to those around us and the complexities of their lives.
Reading poetry can trigger embodied knowing and connects us with our inner worlds. Both reading and writing poems, require us to slow down, use a different sort of attention which invites noticing rather than controlling. Poetry can become a way of capturing and legitimising uncertainty and emotional complexity.
What we did
Our first poetry gathering was in July. We shared the poem below and asked ourselves
What does this poem mean to me?
How did it feel in our body as we read the poem?
What resonated?
This led to a discussion too wide ranging to share here, other than a few highlights. We noticed that for many of us in our healthcare training, and also within the western culture in general, we are trained and encouraged to pay attention to the stuff going on in our heads, but little attention is paid to the way we feel in our bodies. This led onto a discussion about noticing our feelings and how our bodies respond when we encounter new social situations, including when we meet patients.
Here is the poem we explored together. As you read it, think about the three questions above:
Something Like The Sea
Philip Gross - Deep Field. Published by BloodAxe
Part II of a three part poem
On the shores of Lake Aphasia
mist seeps upwards, early morning, in fine strands
like milk in water. Almost Japanese.
In some Zen light, or Pure Land,
we might see it so:
the more
white paper, the more eloquent:
silence
measuring the distance between this and this.
I wish I could say
'We sat for half an hour in silence.
Nothing needed to be said'
It isn't true. You can't stop
rattling a box of empty syllables
while something needs, it cries out,
for the saying. Is this it?
I write on your word-pad, I
mime. Is it this? Or this?
Help me! Who looking in
the window now would say
which of us was the one deprived of speech.
More to come
We are planning on running more poetry sessions. They are 45mins long online, and will alternative between lunchtime and evening, aligning with the equinox and solstice dates. If you would like to join please e-mail nickie@justimagineif.org.uk or hello@justimagineif.org.uk.