Writing - Corpus

Going public with very personal stories

9 October 2017 3 Comments

Trish Harris

When I was six years old I developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

That’s a fact I’ve stated many times in the last 12 months. I’ve told big groups and I’ve told reporters.

It’s strange to say it so bluntly and so publicly. In nearly 50 years of having arthritis, it has never been the first thing I would tell people—or even something I would deliberately draw attention to—despite it being physically obvious.

The decision to write a memoir, telling the story of growing up with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) and dealing with the resultant damaged joints as an adult, was a big one.

Writing down catastrophe

25 September 2017 4 Comments

Fiona Farrell

In June this year, six years since Christchurch was shaken awake into a new understanding of the city and the geology beneath it, I published a novel. Decline and Fall on Savage Street was prompted by that event, and the years that succeeded it as the city shimmied then settled to a kind of peace, or as close to peace as this country can manage. (There have been a couple of quakes already today; yesterday there were seven, though they have been tiny and distant, barely discernible. A reminder, however, that this is not perhaps the most tranquil place to perch, above the interface of a couple of major tectonic plates.)

Writing about this event and the political and corporate activity it unleashed has been a curious business.

‘Family History’: poems by Johanna Emeney

21 August 2017 Leave a Comment

Johanna Emeney

It’s poetry week in New Zealand, in the run-up to National Poetry Day on Friday 25 August. Here Auckland poet Johanna Emeney talks about the writing of her second poetry collection, Family History, which contains poetry written in response to her mother’s illness. Many of Emeney’s poems in this collection document the behaviour and language of healthcare professionals, and the impact of that on the quality of care received.

Family History grew from the creative component of my PhD. My thesis was essentially a study of autobiographical medical poetry written from the points of view of doctors, patients, carers and parents.

I knew that I wanted to explore constructs of identity and family in my own collection – how they are affected by illness and medical treatment. I also knew that I wanted to write about how it felt to be close to someone who was not being well cared for by medical professionals, and conversely, how it felt when a person in a healthcare role acted compassionately. In particular, I wanted to highlight how important the job of anyone in healthcare is, whether that person is a physician, hospital nurse, district nurse or liaison officer. Their warmth or coolness, their dedication or dispassion, makes a huge difference to the experience of the patient and his or her family.

‘Listening with my heart’: Poems by Aotearoa New Zealand nurses

24 July 2017 Leave a Comment

Miriam Vollweiler

By their involvement in the arts, whether poetry, painting, or writing novels, nurses and other health professionals have the opportunity to express a side of themselves which is not always possible in their day-to-day work. It is a creative way of reflecting and thinking about what they see and do and feel in their daily contact with patients.” – Lorraine Ritchie, editor of Listening with my Heart

The recently-launched book, Listening with my heart: Poems by Aotearoa New Zealand nurses, is the first anthology of poems by nurses to be published in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Edited by nurse and poet Lorraine Ritchie, with illustrations by Janet de Wagt, it contains poems selected from work submitted by nurses as part of a New Zealand Nurses Organisation’s ‘Visibility of Nursing’ project.

Through the fog: book by book, word by word

17 July 2017 2 Comments

Grace Carlyle

DECEPTION OF TIREDNESS

buried under a wait of exhaustion
there is no fragrance in my words
fold the flowers away,
the sun shines
why do I hear rain?

Illness has been a common thread throughout my life, that of those close to me or my own. It set me on a course that would ultimately prove against me, yet I determined to grow up strong, healthy and financially independent – if it killed me.

From nurse to novelist: Penelope Todd

20 February 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

Writing fiction enlarged the scope of my thinking” – Penelope Todd

Penelope Todd is a novelist, editor and publisher. She trained as a nurse, and practised for almost 20 years in hospitals, GP surgeries and a hospice. Her powerful novel, Island, draws inspiration from her nursing experience, and from a real-life quarantine hospital on an island near her home in Dunedin, New Zealand. About making the transition from nurse to novelist, Penelope says:

I went into nursing keen to make some sort of practical difference in the world. I was young, idealistic and somewhat blinkered by my ideals. I’m glad now of the exposure to such a variety of people and to the suffering of others, which doubtless lifted the lid on my insularity. It didn’t occur to me to write (besides in letters and journals, which I’ve done since childhood) until I had three young children, and found myself exhilarated by the act of writing a short story for a competition deadline. This galvanising activity seemed suddenly necessary, and I was to learn in due course just where that vital current could lead someone willing to follow it.”