Poetry - Corpus

“The Track”: word-walking through pain

7 October 2019 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

I counted my footsteps and made alphabetical lists of things (one two three ant, one two three bee) without missing a single beat.” – Paula Green, The Track.

In 2015, poet Paula Green set out to walk the 70 km-long Queen Charlotte Track at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. The track winds from bay to bay from Meretoto/Ship Cove to Anakiwa, a 3-5 day walk through a beautiful and historic landscape. All went according to plan until, on the longest day and during a violent storm, Paula slipped, sustaining two foot fractures. Ten hours of painful walking lay ahead.

Before her accident, Paula was already walking as a poet, collecting images and stories as she traversed the track. The “slap / of pain in the midst / of walking” changed everything. From this moment on, Paula is, quite literally, word-walking out of the bush. The alphabet itself becomes a crutch, rhythm becomes a painkiller, and each line lays down another small segment of the track underfoot.

Paula’s recently-published poetry collection, The Track, is an account of this journey.

Headcase: on representing concussion in poetry

2 September 2019 3 Comments

Claire Lacey

I thought I understood concussion. I had played contact sports my whole life, after all, complete with my fair share of bumps to the head. A few begrudging days of rest and I was always raring to get back to the game. Until the time that I wasn’t.

My last concussion four years ago was a life-altering event. In the weeks following that concussion, I was confused, disoriented, unable to read or write, cook a meal, or even walk properly. I had a severe and constant headache, and my room wouldn’t stop spinning. It was like the world’s worst hangover that just wouldn’t quit. The pain kept me from sleeping, my eyes couldn’t track properly, I had left side weakness, my emotions were all over the place, and even my menstrual cycle became erratic. As my rehabilitation stretched on and on, I realised I was no longer capable of performing my fun, frenetic job coaching at a gym, and my dreams of playing roller derby for Team Canada were over. I continue to cope with the effects that the concussion and its recovery process have had on my body and my ambitions.

Poetry: “a long document about the species”

5 August 2019 2 Comments

Yoram Barak

Yoram Barak is a judge for the poetry competition Changing Minds: Memories Lost and Found, organised by the Dunedin Public Libraries and the Neurological Foundation of NZ. Find details on how to enter here.

I became aware of the importance of poetry through American poet Sharon Old’s poem, “Back Rub”. Originally published in her 1992 collection, The Father, the poem was reprinted in a special edition of The Lancet focused on Literature and Ageing. The poem chronicles the poet’s father’s dying, as well as her own process of acceptance and healing as she moves with him to his death and beyond.

In my work as a psychogeriatrician I often witness patients, caregivers, families and communities struggling through the journey of dementia as they are faced with the daunting loss of memory. Can poetry help us along that journey?

The loss of memories is experienced as the loss of “I”, of the core element of “self.” We grasp our sense of individual self and, in most Western cultures, push away the true meaning of impermanence. As dementia takes its toll we experience the impermanence of our memories and for most of us this is a horrifying insight. Poetry as a truly heroic attempt to capture the human condition is a major art form that can help transform the horrifying into the empathic.

Time-jumping: facing dementia and death

1 July 2019 5 Comments

Samantha Montgomerie

We like to think of time as linear. Seconds building on seconds, forming the minutes, hours and days that track the path of our lives. Dementia and death fracture this line.

Time jumps.

My terminally ill father slipped into dementia in his final months. He suffered a recurring delusion that he could travel back in time.

“A jumper.”

His wide eyes would shine with his conviction. He would arrive at some train station back in time – naked, cold, and anxious about finding his way home. He would struggle through the night, trying to track back, wandering the corridors to find the right path home. We felt helpless in our inability to calm him. At times it was easier to bring the jersey he asked for, to warm him as he faced snow flurries in 1930s France.

A book launch – and a re-launch

3 June 2019 3 Comments

Grace Carlyle

“You have a lot left in you,” said the bartender as I left. “I can tell.”

It was a nice parting gift from someone who’d been a stranger an hour or so before. I’m not in the habit of frequenting bars but, needing to fill in a couple of hours before a book launch and accompanying poetry reading, and also needing to sit down, I’d pushed open the door with some trepidation and asked whether I could get a cup of coffee.

“Sure,” came the friendly response. When I requested only one shot of coffee in the Americano he commented that he hadn’t made a one-shot coffee for a while. My explanation about needing to keep my potassium levels low struck a chord with him and we went on to exchange some medical history. He’d had a bad concussion and caffeine was now contraindicated. Like me he loved coffee, however he could only allow himself one cup a week. I was fortunate in being allowed one cup a day, but rarely had ‘real’ coffee as I believed it to be higher in potassium. My restrictions resulted from kidney impairment.

The poetry of getting back to living

1 April 2019 Leave a Comment

Gail Ingram

I’m from Christchurch. On my website, I introduce myself by saying ‘writing saves my life’. Before 15 March 2019, I was going to try and persuade you how this was so. I wanted to argue that I had evidence of this, that in the experience of writing Contents Under Pressure, my soon-to-be published poetry manuscript, I supported my damaged children in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes, and, in doing so, kept them living.

I wanted to communicate some of what it felt, as a mother, to support teenagers who were suffering severe mental stress, and how necessary and large the task was to work our family back to health. I wanted to be there; attend the hours and days and weeks in doctors’ appointments, school appointments; listen and learn and implement coping strategies, model them; and most of all, through it all, give love and survive.