Poetry Friday: Poetry in Medicine

I'm taking a break from my month-long "In Residence" series today. I have a day off from teaching elementary school poetry workshops this Friday. Instead of writing, I'm reading poetry.

We're rounding up
at Matt Forrest Esenwine's blog today.
See you at Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme
for more poetic posts.

One of the great poetry mentors in my life is Michael Salcman. In addition to being an accomplished poet, Michael is a neurosurgeon and art historian.

Michael has just published Poetry in Medicine: An Anthology of Poems About Doctors, Patients, Illness, and Healing. Although it's only been out for a few months, this anthology is has already become THE book on this topic.

I had a wonderful conversation with Michael about the book, poets' views of doctors, and what it's like to be a poet-physician. You'll find that interview posted at Little Patuxent Review's blog today.

Michael selected a detail from this painting,
 The Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakins,
for the cover of Poetry in Medicine.
Shop local! Order Poetry in Medicine
from Baltimore's Ivy Bookshop.

Michael features another poet-physician (and a surprise cameo) in his poem "Dr. Williams Delivers a Baby," which is collected in Poetry in Medicine.

Dr. Williams Delivers a Baby
by Michael Salcman

Dr. Williams was making his rounds:
one dilapidated house, then another,
powdered oxygen on the aluminum siding,
brown shingles on the roofs.
In between visits, he’d sit in his car
a notebook on his lap and arrange words—
instruments on a surgical tray—
uterine sounds blunt as tire-irons,
scalpels sharper than paper.
Often a cry from within the house
would bring him running past its yard,
past a tomato plant or wheelbarrow or red hen,
things he took in as he sprang
up the porch steps, hoping the family
was already in the parlor, had put the kettle on,
had found clean towels and disinfectant
to swab the wound or welcome the crowning head.
He put down his old-fashioned doctor’s bag,
a satchel peaked like a dormer at both ends,
his initials stamped in gold, long ago faded,
and took off his wool overcoat. Tonight,
he noted the burdened book shelves,
responsible chair, the goose-necked reading lamp,
the desk loaded with papers, writing tools
and a folding pince-nez: the father
was a professor or writer of some degree,
who could afford both coal and electric.
He suspected they were Jewish, the mother
of German ancestry, the father Sephardic—
but had no reason to know. In truth
he had only a cursory familiarity with their tribe
and knew no Hebrew. But the mother’s cry?
Soon, it was going to be soon. He timed her pain
until a dark spot between her labia grew
and it was time to prep and drape her;
then he encouraged the head with a gloved hand
turned the shoulders and delivered the rest.
Dr. Williams told the father it looked like a writer,
this noisy boy, vigorous and exploring.
They would name him Allen.

Poem shared by express permission of the author.

You can find another interview about Poetry in Medicine at WYPR, Baltimore's local NPR affiliate.

To check out my "In Residence" series of lessons and poems from Northfield Elementary, visit yesterday's post.