This spring, Dr. Rosemarie Dombrowski (1) led OLLI members on a journey through selected works of Emily Dickinson, the most famous American woman poet of the 19th century. Her poems were discussed and examined through the lens of her medical conditions including the influence of pain, chronic illness, and seizures on her works. Students looked at the ways in which these afflictions shaped her iconic verse and then launched into a discussion of “narrative medicine”, a concept invented over 25 years ago by Dr. Rita Charon.
Narrative medicine is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes the importance of listening to and understanding patient’s stories in addition to and in conjunction with their symptoms. Its foundation stems from the idea that “a patient begins to heal once they feel heard…and are able to tell their story”.
Using the “parallel chart” approach, a writing exercise given to medical students, students learned the importance of humanizing the patient and “subverting the traditional balances of power in the clinical setting.” The parallel chart includes all the elements found in a medical chart: physical exam notes, lab results, consulting physician opinions, and a care plan. Every bit as important though, it also includes a patient’s comments, emotions, even key words and phrases they’ve used to describe their condition. According to Dr. Charon, the parallel chart emphasizes the emotional/humanistic aspects of medicine/patient care. When shared and incorporated into a collaborative treatment plan, it also returns a powerful sense of agency to the patient.
The class then re-created some of their own afflictions or medical incidents using the style that felt the most cathartic to them. They could opt for a direct, blunt, “in-your-face” approach or to use Dickinson’s adage to, “tell the truth, but tell it slant” – meaning to reveal it gently, carefully, and indirectly, with the idea that through storytelling, the audience will accept the truth more fully.
Below are some of the poems the students in the class crafted under Dr. Dombrowski’s guidance:
DIAGNOSIS - NO WAY OUT
By: Brenda Curry
News confirmed
Nowhere to hide
Trampled spirit
Along for the ride
Waking hours, crushing
Days wracked with dread
Wounds, indelible
Exploding my head
A sea of drugs
Alcohol leads the chase
Thinly-veiled hugs
Mirages left to face
THE GHOSTS TOLD ME
By: Robin Krevitsky Ferguson
Oh, learned men, you know my ghosts better than I know them.
Or at least you want me to think you know my ghosts
Oh, learned men, my ghosts are not yours to know,
They live deep inside me. You can’t see them, but I can feel them.
They travel through me on their own whims
Oh, learned men, when you find I am right, and you are wrong.
My ghosts will not haunt you unless I allow them
Oh, learned men, my ghosts have created space so they may haunt you.
I have not given permission, and they do not care about learned men.
I was right, you were wrong, the ghosts still haunt me.
THE VOICE
By: Joann Mullen
A new haircut, I could take on the world
Heading home, my husband awaiting
I'm ready to preen, go out celebrating. . .
And then IT happened, didn't know what IT was
I was shaking, vibrating --abuzz.
My shoulders and neck both turned to stone
Was I going to die -- in my car all alone
Then across the road i saw a place alit
Not sure how I go there but somehow I did
Parked, ran in yelling "Call 911"
And that's when the fun, the real fun begun
"This is a vet's office" I heard someone say
We don't treat people, we aren't docs"
Does she think I care? Is her head full of rocks?
"PLEASE CALL 911 - I NEED HELP I repeat"
The EMTs rushed in and they were the best --did all kinds of odd things to my chest.
A heart attack? We're trying to tell
I was wanting a "NO"
That's when I heard it!
I heard a voice
From deep down within me, there came a BOLD voice.
"NO, I WON'T DIE"
My new voice took a stand,
I won't let that happen, that isn't the plan!
Didn't die. I was home in a few days--my new voice and me. I embraced my new partner, we're friends til this day.
MENDING TIME
By: Kim Rodgers
As the rock ripples through pond water,
one diagnosis morphs to more.
From physical to psychological,
the body’s betrayal, the mind echoes.
The body knew the truth,
the mind followed suit.
All is well, come back in six.
The mind: what a myth.
Nerves affray, until surgery day.
Bowing to the powers above
kept some stress at bay.
All aspects of life affray.
Not as bad as could be,
not the good wished for.
One affliction freed,
in return creating more.
You saved your own life doctor said;
intuition kicked in——I listened.
Not my denouement,
grateful for more life to be led.
Anxiety still fills the mind,
each pain amplified.
More scans to further find,
the results, now verified.
Only time can soothe the soul,
uphold the evidence.
At first day by day,
then week by week,
month by month,
year by year.
Side effects normalized,
anxiety abated.
The pond is calm once more.
BEYOND THE GLASS
By: Aimee Shramko
Beyond the glass
Dust devils whirl and twirl their happy chaotic dance
Aquamarine shimmers from refracted water on the ceiling
Yet it’s a party I cannot attend
Burrowed deep within me is a thief
Pushing through boundaries it ought not to go
A thief of the senses evoking stark white fear
It mocks and torments relentless and with disregard
Dormant in its hollow, its guise appears benign
But like a class clown it hounds and follows
Until, rescued in their eyes, I’m sent back to silence
I shake and shiver – isolated
Beside me the stuff that once cradled love is cold
Logic is obsolete – replaced by mechanical deceit
In the end, it is not the thief that robs, but the cure
Gripping granite through searing pain for support
I succumb once again to life on earth
Dreams cease
DELAYED DESTINY
By: Mike Temkin
Driven to succeed…
without a fully purchased ticket.
Just wanting to skip all the local stops along the way,
preferring the accelerated privilege of taking the express.
But without a collaborating conductor,
inexplicably falling off the tracks ---
though purely by gumption and luck …
just barely missing the hot third rail.
Awkwardly gregarious,
Curiously vicarious,
Ambidextrously clumsy,
Phonetically challenged.
Navigating my aspirations without a compass, directionless ---
with too few guidance counselors, coaches and advisors,
but plenty of well-intentioned doctors without a perspective
other than well-established, assumed-to-be correct diagnoses and
often-prescribed, assumed-to-be-appropriate medications.
At first, the discomfort was at times intangible.
Somewhat bearable.
Initially intermittent.
Then … eventually … constant,
increasingly painful,
invariably distracting.
Was it just the teenage blues,
puberty manifesting itself beyond
macho malfeasance,
or was I eating too much spicy, greasy, incorrigibly bad food as the doctors implied?
Or as I came to suspect without any clinical evidence,
was it simply - what was eating me?
A stomach ulcer - burning, stinging …
doubling me up at times –
immoveable, unapproachable, buttressed in a fetal position …
my daily comfort shattered,
composure compromised,
confidence betrayed.
I would linger upon my limitations,
sidetracked by an impatience to be ambitious,
paralyzed by insecurities, ambiguity and restlessness.
Though all was subliminally nonsensible,
possibly misunderstood at first,
eventually I came to a realization ---
impractical fears create rigor mortis …
while pragmatic aspirations stimulate vigor, vitality and vision,
able to take you beyond delayed destiny.
After three years the pain and discomfort were gone.
Spicy food could not bring it back.
But the appetite for greasy food was completely gone,
along with snide pretentiousness and immature precociousness.
Now able to keep a conscientious
train of thought,
my goals appeared to be within reach.
With manageable velocity I was finally able to
appreciate the stops along the way,
Eventually realizing though at times it can be best to be ahead of the curve,
it is nevertheless clearly advisable to avoid tumultuously speeding off the track.
A SAMPLE OF EMILY DICKINSON'S POEMS
Is Heaven a Physician?
Is Heaven a Physician?
They say that He can heal—
But Medicine Posthumous
Is unavailable—
Is Heaven an Exchequer?
They speak of what we owe—
But that negotiation
I’m not a Party to—
A wounded Deer - leaps highest
A wounded Deer - leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell -
'Tis but the ecstasy of death -
And then the brake is still!
The smitten rock that gushes!
The trampled steel that springs!
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!
Mirth is the mail of anguish -
In which it cautious arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "you're hurt" exclaim!
Pain has an element of blank
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A time when it was not
It has no future but itself
Its infinite contain
Its past enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
(1) Rosemarie Dombrowski, PhD, is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, a TEDx speaker, the founding editor of rinky dink press, and the founding director of Revisionary Arts, a nonprofit that facilitates self-care and healing through poetry. She's published three collections of poetry and is the recipient of an Arts Hero award, a Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, a Great 48 award (2020), the Arizona Humanities Outstanding Speaker Award (2022), and a Capital Times Leader of the Year Award (2023). She's the founding editor of ISSUED: stories of service, a journal for military affiliated peoples at ASU, and the faculty editor of Grey Matter, the medical poetry journal of the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. She also curates the Pharmacy of Poems in the Compassion Center at Banner-University Medical Center-Phoenix.
