Author: Aimee Shramko
Published: Oct. 28, 2024
At 4am on the morning of March 27th, my husband of 26 years who had no previous heart issues, suffered a sudden and massive heart attack that proved fatal. Just two days prior, I had completed a two-session ASU OLLI course entitled “Writing for Wellness” taught by Dr. Rosemarie Dombrowski who advocates the use of writing, one of my passions, to support wellness in times of crisis. I didn’t know at the time how much I would come to appreciate the enlightening foundations that class would yield.
The class began with an introduction to Narrative Medicine, an initiative founded 25 years ago by physician Rita Charone. Narrative Medicine is based on the principle that a patient begins to heal once they feel heard. It promotes training future physicians in “the art of radical listening and narrative competence”. In so doing, it seeks to foster a culture among physicians that encourages patients to share their stories to initiate the healing process.
The class then focused on “Poetic Medicine”, a subset that employs poetry to prompt discussion, reflection, and introspection. Both writing and reading poems has been shown through multiple studies to combat the impact of physical and mental illness, aging, stress, and grief. On the topic of grief, Dr. Dombrowski demonstrated, through her own experience, that grief is ever-present. It can feel similar to a nagging physical pain that stabs you relentlessly and without warning throughout the day. Two days later I experienced the harsh reality of this example. I learned that not only is it ever present, but that grief will spin you around, disorient you, and then with little regard for your resiliency, hit you with a blow of such force that you are left crushed, breathless, and stripped bare.
Much to my surprise, I learned that to cope with grief, some of the most outgoing people will retreat from public interaction while typically introverted people like me, will reach out to a wide network of friends and family to find support. But whether you’re “high functioning” like I am and turn to tasks and keeping busy to lessen the pain, or “low functioning” and have trouble getting out of bed and feeding yourself, grief remains constant.
Fast forward to June when I found myself desperately needing Dr. Dombrowski’s second class, “Navigating Grief: A Poetic Medicine Approach”. This class placed less emphasis on the efficacy of poetic medicine and more on the practice, allowing students to spend time reflecting, writing, and sharing. Dr. Dombrowski explained that grief produces stress hormones, intrusive thoughts, and impacts cognitive functions. If we neglect to help our neural network remap and adjust to our new reality with methods such as mindfulness and creative writing, grief can become acute.
We discussed Denise Levertov’s famous poem “Talking to Grief”, a brilliant personification of grief using the metaphor of a homeless dog. Rather than being repulsed by the dog’s matted, flea ridden coat, Levertov suggests we invite the dog into our space, make it comfortable, and surrender to the idea that the dog will not be leaving anytime soon.
Dr Dombrowski further explored the use of metaphors to facilitate remapping our brains. By connecting with grief as a physical presence, we help the brain decode and diffuse its traumatic impact. We can then more readily accept grief instead of turning away from it, thus allowing the healing process to begin.
We were invited to write our own poems to be shared with the class, if we chose, using personification that gives human qualities to grief. My poem cast grief as a raging bull with me as the inadequately prepared matador attempting to keep the bull at bay using the power of love my husband and I shared. It was challenging to write and, I must be honest here, impossible to read for the class without choking up. However, I found myself wanting to connect to the other students by sharing the poem. Dr. Dombrowski, sensing my distress, kindly offered to read it for me. Hearing her read my words aloud was affirming, therapeutic, and inspiring. Writing is now an essential part of my healing process and I continue to turn to it as a primary step on the path to wellness. Thank you Dr. Dombrowski!
If you would like to learn more about The Medicinal Power of Poetry watch Dr. Dombrowski’s powerful TED talk here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6i4WDlIPFE.
Dr. Dombrowski’s classes are consistently offered through ASU OLLI so check your Schedule of Classes for upcoming courses. Dr. Rosemarie Dombrowski, PhD, is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ and the founding director of Revisionary Arts.
Dr. Dombrowski is a Teaching Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) where she specializes in Medical Humanism and literature of the marginalized.
