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.

Poetry Friday: Golden Shovels

Thanks to everyone who tried writing a Golden Shovel poem with me last week.

To review: the Golden Shovel is a poetic form invented by MacArthur genius award winner Terrance Hayes. You can read his original Golden Shovel here. Using a favorite poem by someone else as your starting off point, take the words of the first line or stanza (or any favorite line from the poem). Use those words in order as the end words for each line of your new poem.

I'm breaking out the glo-paint
for Michelle H. Barnes.
She's hosting Poetry Friday this week
at Today's Little Ditty.

The poems I'm featuring today--Golden Shovels by Linda Baie, Michelle H. Barnes, and my poem based on a William Carlos Williams favorite--describe autumn in their imagery and tone.

I have to agree with Joy's (who blogs at Poetry for Kids) comment on last week's post. One of the biggest challenges in writing a Golden Shovel is dealing with line breaks. When the form requires ending on a word such as "from," "a," or "the," how does the poet make the line feel unforced? Not easy. Beginning with a haiku or other noun-rich poem, as Joy suggested, is good advice if you want to try a Golden Shovel.

Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche told me that poet Nikki Grimes ran a contest with this form. Although the contest is over, Grimes' explanation of the Golden Shovel is kid-friendly. Stop by her blog if you'd like to check it out and try it with your young writers.

Here is Linda Baie's contribution, followed by a few lines from her jumping-off poem, "Loss" by Carl Adamshick. Linda blogs at Teacher Dance.

The first line must be about the wind,
in October, I feel the lifting
of the trees, lighter now without the leaves,
slipping like babies turning from
the breast, into sleep, nestled in mother’s branches.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

Loss
by Carl Adamshick

It is nice to be without answers
at the end of summer.
Wind lifting leaves from branches.

The moment laid down like something
in childhood and forgotten, until later,
when stumbled upon, we think:
this is where it was lost.

Read the rest at the Academy of American Poets.

I'm amazed that Linda's poem has such a different feel from the original, even though she "found" a line of Adamshick's poem for her own piece, and both are set in autumn.

Michelle also chose a favorite line for the basis of her Golden Shovel. The words at the end of each line come from the third line of Adelaide Crapsey's "November Night." You can read "November Night" at the Poetry Foundation.

Fallen

Soft, mottled leaves, like
Grandma's hands, pause on the steps
at the threshold of 
memory. A subtle passing,
in, then out, like distant ghosts. 

© 2014 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

I love the way the ghosts travel from Crapsey's poem into Michelle's original piece.

You can see me working overtime in my new Golden Shovel, trying to make the end-words feel natural. As a writing exercise, this stretched my thinking and took the poem to unexpected places.

Waterwheel
by Laura Shovan
after William Carlos Williams

Rain today, so

I’m not doing much.

Sad, how productivity depends

upon the weather. I put my feet up on

the hassock, read postcards signed by “A.”--

anonymous pen-pal, whose favorite ink is red.

Here is a card depicting a waterwheel

in Notogowa, another from the town of Barrow

in Alaska – photos glazed

with fingerprints of those they traveled with

to reach me in the rain.

These cards bear the mark of water,

smell of the perfume samples they sat beside

in my mailbox, nestled between the

magazines and a flock of dull envelopes, white

as a hen house full of chickens.

Funny... a white bird also appeared in my first Golden Shovel.  Enjoy William Carlos Williams reading, "The Red Wheelbarrow."

Ever since the 2013 Poetry Postcard project, I do have a friend with whom I exchange postcards. He's not anonymous and doesn't write in red ink, but, I'm always glad to receive a postcard from poet Charles Rammelkamp. (You can read about Charles' loves of postcards at this post from 2013.) The most recent one he sent was of Prince William, Duchess Kate Middleton, and Prince George. Maybe Charles remembered that my mother is British.

Source Poems, This Is Just to Say: National Poetry Month 2014

Forget April Fool’s Day. My favorite thing about April 1 is this: it’s the first day of National Poetry Month.

NPM posters are available at Poets.org

Each year, poets and bloggers around the web host series in honor of NPM. This is Author Amok’s fifth year celebrating NPM.

We all have favorite poems. But I've been thinking about something a little deeper: Source poems. Poems that we draw like water from a well, again and again, to quench some thirst.

Source poems can be a well of inspiration, comfort,
and emotional connection for the reader.

For National Poetry Month 2014, I’ve invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about their own source poems. These might be:

1. The poem that made you realize you wanted to be a writer.
2. A poem that shifted your thinking about what poetry is.
3. A poem that changed how you view yourself and your place in the world.
4. A poem that you have memorized and internalized. Its cadence is a part of you.

A source poem is also:

1. A poem that you read again and again and again.
2. A poem that you love to discuss and share with others.
3. A poem that carries special meaning in your life as a writer or as a human being.
4. A poem that has a back-story for you.

Here is the schedule for my National Poetry Month: Source Poems series:

4/1: Series intro -- Laura Shovan on Williams Carlos Williams' "This Is Just to Say"

4/2: Dylan Bargteil on June Jordan's "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma"

4/4: Jane (J.C.) Elkin on a poem from childhood, "Hannibal Clim"

4/7: Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho

4/9: Jone MacCulloch on "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)" by Joyce Sidman

4/11: Mary Bargteil on "Little Gidding" by T. S. Eliot

4/14: Jacqueline Jules on "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

4/16: Pamela Murray Winters on "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson
4/17: Dennis Kirschbaum on "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson

4/18: Janet Clare on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

4/19: Linda Baie on "The Way It Is" by William Stafford

4/21: Pat Valdata on "Sea Fever" by John Masefield

4/22: Irene Latham's Progressive Poem Project is at Author Amok

4/23: Shirley Brewer on "The Singers" by Eavan Boland

4/24: Renee LaTulippe on "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath

4/25: Ann Bracken on "The Well of Grief" by David Whyte

4/28: Margaret Simon on "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

4/29: Tim Ward

4/30: Toby Speed and series wrap-up

I promised to tell the story of one of my own source poems, and how it almost got me into a brawl when I was a freshman at NYU.

Backstory: It’s 1987. I am a Dramatic Writing major at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. For the most part, my classes are in screenwriting, Shakespeare, acting, and video production. Tisch students like me only have to take a few classes with the general NYU public.

One of these required classes is freshman Comp. Composition? But I’m a writer! I had to submit my writing to get into this dang program. I should NOT have to take freshman Comp with the masses. It is beneath me. (At 18, I am wise beyond my years.)

There’s no getting out of it. And the class isn’t so bad. One of the assignments is to analyze a poem. I was editor of my high school literary magazine. I am all over this assignment.

I go for a poem that appears simple, but is meaty enough to make a good paper. It’s by one of my favorite poets, (fellow New Jerseyan) William Carlos Williams.

This Is Just To Say

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

From the Poetry Foundation.

I must have first come across “This Is Just to Say” in high school. Every time I read it, this poem is a source of wonder. How did Williams manage to communicate so much emotion in what appears to be a simple note, left on a kitchen counter?

My paper examined the characters in the poem – the speaker, the suggested “you.” I explored the imagery: icebox, plums; the implication that the speaker rose early and left the “you” asleep in bed; the sensuality of the last two lines; the significance of the title. These elements work in conjunction to sketch a romantic relationship, but Williams’ touch is so light, so natural, that the poem still reads like a simple keeping-house note. Amazing. I could read it again and again.

I saunter into class, knowing I will wow the professor with my literary insight.

I am not prepared for Student X.

Student X also has a favorite poem to share. It is called, “Papa Don’t Preach,” by Brian Elliott, with additional lyrics by Madonna.

Student X is offended that “This Is Just to Say” should be considered alongside the literary greatness of “Papa Don’t Preach.” He (she? –I was in a state of shock at the time, so details are blurry) argues, with increasing anger, that song lyrics make just as good, if not better, use of literary techniques than so-called poems … like that note-thing. You call that a poem?! How can that be a poem? It’s a joke!

My face may have gone from a shade of overheated red to full-on plum at this point. I think I may have blacked out – the memory is vague -- but not before defending WCW to the hilt.

Although I am older, wiser, and less snarky than I was at 18, this poem still has the power to communicate emotion and sensuality. Williams’ use of every day words and a simple narrative makes “This Is Just to Say” even more masterful. It is a model for my own poetry and continues to be one of my source poems.

Now let us watch, once again (because I can’t help myself!) “This Is Just to Say” performed by British actor Mathew MacFadyen. Pure poetry.

Poetry Friday

My father-in-law passed away this week at the age of 65. He spent two weeks at St. Mary's Hospital in Passaic, NJ, where William Carlos Williams was a longtime staff doctor.

Here is his poem, "The Last Words of My English Grandmother." I love this elegy because Williams doesn't try to pretty up his grandmother or her struggle to stay in control, even as she faces death.

The Last Words of My English Grandmother

There were some dirty plates

and a glass of milk

beside her on a small table

near the rank, disheveled bed—

Wrinkled and nearly blind

she lay and snored

rousing with anger in her tones

to cry for food,

Gimme something to eat—

They're starving me—

I'm all right I won't go

to the hospital. No, no, no

Give me something to eat

Let me take you

to the hospital, I said

and after you are well

you can do as you please.

She smiled, Yes

you do what you please first

then I can do what I please—

Read the rest at Writers Almanac.

This is the plaque to Williams at St. Mary's Hospital. My husband pointed out that -- even at the hospital -- they put "poet" before "physician."

More Poetry Friday at this week's host...Read, Write, Believe.

Robert Albert Shovan December 2, 1943 - June 2, 2009.

Poetry Friday: Five Questions for Jen Bryant

Readers, you know that William Carlos Williams is a fellow New Jerseyan and my all-time poetic hero (check out this post). So I was just a little excited when the picture book biography on Williams, A River of Words, won a Caldecott Honor. But I was jumping for joy for my friend, poet Jen Bryant, who wrote the book. Jen is visiting with me today to talk about A River of Words and how she promotes poetry through her books (which include novels in verse The Trial, Pictures of Georgia and Ringside 1925). Congratulations on the Caldecott Honor, Jen! Thanks very much—(illustrator) Melissa Sweet and I are thrilled, to be sure! We’ve all heard “experts” complain that poetry is in decline (though many of us disagree). How does it feel to see a book – your book! -- about a poet and his love of words receiving attention? Even now (a couple of weeks after the announcement) it’s still a little unbelievable. But we did think—once we saw the page layouts with the endpapers just before it was sent off to the printer’s, that my story and her illustrations had combined so well—and that it was a very special book. We’ve both done many books before this, but none together. So—it’s a bit like an arranged marriage that ends up being really happy! Why is William Carlos Williams someone children should read about? On the other hand, what attracts kids to this poet and physician? How did you find that point of attraction? There are several reasons, actually. As a boy, he had a passion for language and poetry—but as he grew older, he also understood his responsibility as an adult to be financially independent and he knew that poetry alone wouldn’t do that for him. I think that’s a pretty common dilemma for a lot of us—how do we pay the rent and put food on the table while getting better at our craft? Furthermore, he loved babies and children, so he became a pediatrician/ obstetrician. So in that sense his “day job” was one that kids are already familiar with. Lastly, the brevity and simplicity of many of his most well-known poems makes him very accessible to us and to young people who are just being introduced to poetry. I think he’s one of the easiest poets to teach because he often makes familiar objects and situations the focus of his poems and that provides an instant connection with the reader. Words from Williams’ poems are embedded in the illustrations for the book. Williams was a prolific poet. How were specific poems chosen for A River of Words? It was hard—he wrote so many wonderful poems. I spent a lot of time looking through anthologies and both volumes of his Selected Poems. The ones we chose had to stand alone and also be accessible to a range of ages and reading levels—and yet be varied and sophisticated enough for adults who would read the book.

You are a poet, writing about a poet’s life. Yet A River of Words is written in prose. Why did you decide that prose was the best way to tell Williams’ story? True, it’s not poetry per se, but I like to think of it as poetic prose or lyrical prose. I do try to pay attention to repetition, sound, and imagery—all of which play a big part in this text as well as other picture book biographies I’ve written. I’ve been very pleased that many of the reviewers and awards annotations have mentioned these factors in the writing—it takes longer to write a book in this way . . .but a beautiful life, I believe, deserves beautiful language! What aspects of the book do you think Williams himself would have liked? I imagine he would have REALLY liked the way Melissa Sweet’s illustrations and my words combined for this book. (Not enough credit is given to the publisher/ art director whose decision it is to put us together!)

Williams had once thought about becoming a painter (his mother had attended art school) and he believed very much in the overlap of the visual and literary arts—and I do too! Thank you, my friend, for promoting poetry. The book is wonder for the ear and the eyes!

Everyone -- I'm offline until April for some self-imposed, technology free writing time. But while I'm still on the Net, I'll be checking out today's Poetry Friday posts. You can find them at The Holly and the Ivy.

Writing Exercise: Ekphrastic Poetry

Recommended Ages: All! William Carlos Williams wasn't the only poet to write about Brueghel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus." Another -- more famous -- poem about this painting is W.H. Auden's "Musee Des Beaux Arts."

The two poems and Brueghel's painting make a great lesson for high schoolers.

Auden's poem begins:

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

This week's writing exercise: try your hand at an ekphrastic poem.

Choose a favorite work of art -- one that would stop you as you walked through a museum or gallery to have a conversation. What is it about the painting that "talks" to you?

Mine is by Mark Rothko (54).

I'm prepping for a poetry residency at Norwood Elementary in Dundalk, MD tomorrow, so time is short. Each Poetry Friday, I visit Laura Salas' blog: 15 Words or Less Poems. That blog, and my time constraints, inspired me to keep it short!

I know I'm not supposed to see realistic objects in a Rothko painting, but...

Torii at dusk,

I approach you.

What is beyond

your gate? Sleep,

dense as stone.

Have a fantastic ekphrastic experience, y'all.

It's Ekphrastic Poetry Friday!

William Carlos Williams has been one of my source (as in source of water for the well) poets since I was a teenager.

He’s a fellow northern New Jerseyan who, as a working doctor, was on the outskirts of the artistic clique that included Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse.

At an NYU freshman comp class, we were required to bring in a poem & write an essay explaining why we liked it. I shared WCW’s wonderful found poem, “This is Just to Say.” The boy who brought Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” was furious. “That’s not poetry!” he told me (and the rest of the class, loudly.) “Papa Don’t Preach” vs. “This is Just to Say?” No contest!

I love Williams’ fascination with imagery. You can almost feel the grass growing in his poetic response to Brueghel’s painting, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” (see below). His poem, “The Great Figure Five” is a multi-media work of art in words.

There’s a long tradition of poetry written in response to art. The fancy word for it is ekphrastic poetry. If you’ve never encountered the concept before, take a look at Brueghel’s painting, then read the poem and let WCW lead the way.

Ekphrastic poetry is on my mind lately.

The Maryland Humanities Council has invited me and five other MD poets to create a series of school workshops called “Totally Ekphrastic.” You can read about the program here.

We’re each choosing several images from the National Endowment for the Humanities “Picturing America” program. The images are works of American Art -- Hopper, O’Keefe, the Brooklyn Bridge, a series of Native American baskets, a portrait of Paul Revere. You can check out the gallery website.

531 schools in Maryland have requested the images and related curriculum. We’ll see how many of them are interested in the free poetry workshops. I’m excited!

One of my choices is an Audubon painting of a big, pink flamingo. Perfect for elementary schoolers! I’m thinking about having kids pose like a flamingo to get into the spirit.

Here's your ekphrastic poem...

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel

when Icarus fell

it was spring

a farmer was ploughing

his field

the whole pageantry

of the year was

awake tingling

with itself

sweating in the sun

that melted

the wings' wax

unsignificantly

off the coast

there was

a splash quite unnoticed

this was

Icarus drowning

Our host for this week’s Poetry Friday is Check It Out -- that's a command, not a request, so go check out all of this week's poetry!

Amok in Men's Clothes: Literary Cross Dressing

so much depends upon a red mini van filled with women who publish children’s books A few weeks ago, my straight-off-the-lot Toyota Sienna had some unusual passengers. I’d volunteered to chauffeur a carload of children’s lit agents, editors and authors to the airport/train station near my house. They were in Maryland for our regional SCBWI (http://www.scbwi.org/) conference. In the back, where my kids usually sit: Linda Pratt of Sheldon Fogelman Agency, Martha Mihalick of Greenwillow, and Aimee Friedman – Scholastic editor and YA author. Riding shotgun, none other than Newbery Honor winner Cynthia Lord. Wow. I listened to their shoptalk. Chimed in about hot titles and favorite reads in children’s books. But the most fascinating topic that came up is what I am calling literary cross-dressing. The conversation began with Kevin Henkes. The picture book author is also an award-winning children’s novelist (not to mention a hottie, according to my passengers). I loved his Newbery Honor winner Olive’s Ocean. The book is told in third person, but the limited omniscient narrator sticks to the thoughts and experiences of adolescent Martha Boyle. The voice is so true to girlhood that Aimee Friedman said her reaction to the book was, “How did Kevin Henkes get inside my head?” I wish I had written down the lengthy list of male authors who the experts in my car said write great female protagonists. However, when I asked about women who write well in boys’ voices, it was quiet enough to hear my van’s brand-new engine humming. “J.K. Rowling,” someone offered. Lots of agreement. Then…not much else. “Why is that?” I asked, realizing that the novel and two picture books I’ve been shopping around all feature boys. The conversation stuck with me. Why do so few women write in boys’ voices? Is it that hard to do?

Maybe you’re like me – growing up with sibs of the opposite sex. I did not realize until I was an adult and an author how fascinated I’d been with my brothers, how deeply I remember their adventures and quirks and mishaps. Probably because they were so strangely different from me. (You'd never catch me with a pair of y-fronts on my head, pummeling my brother in a mock pro-wrestling match.) Some cross-dressed reading to check out, in addition to Olive’s Ocean: Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is third person omniscient, but pre-adolescent Lyra is the central character in the story; Nancy Springer’s realistic YA novel, Toughing It; Wendelin Van Draanen’s middle grade novel, Flipped, alternates between the female and male first person narrators; William Carlos William’s poem, “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” is one of my favorites -- the speaker of the poem is a woman; classics like Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. Love, Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. To my mind, Stargirl was a better read because the male narrator guided the reader as he tried to understand Stargirl. If you think of more good reads, send a comment. Or maybe you know of a book where literary cross-dressing does not work – a male author just couldn’t pull off that female voice (or vice versa).

Your weekly writing exercise TBP soon.