Sue Wootton
“Poetry=Medicine”: this was the title of an event with which I was involved as part of last weekend’s 2016 Litcrawl festival in Wellington. We were four poets, plus MC and essayist Paul Stanley-Ward: a doctor, a physiotherapist, a chaplain and a literary scholar.
Medicine can be sweet: a balm, a pharmaceutical concoction that soothes and relaxes, that allows you to temporarily forget your aches and enjoy your life. Medicine can be harsh: strong chemicals, purgative or bitter tonic. Medicine always has side effects, because any attempt to tweak a part always sends ripples through the whole.
Poetry=Medicine? Here are some of the ways we tested that equation.
In the eighteen-somethings, an operating theatre was where a surgeon literally performed. The audience, jostling for a better view despite the tiered seating, were there to be entertained as much as to learn. While the modern stage is a somewhat more sanitised affair, theatre remains a brave and bloody place for laying out and suturing bleeding hearts.
Juggling—it’s what many people feel they’re doing every day. Round and round go those balls: Job, Family, Cat-to-the-vet, Clean-the-house, Make-a-meal, Get-the-car-a-WOF, Finish-an-assignment, Cut-the-lawn, Grandma’s birthday, Christmas. So many people spend all day juggling, most with a gnawing sense of impending disaster. It’s so difficult to keep those balls in the air. No wonder people get tired; no wonder people occasionally drop the lot.