Poetry – Page 3

A correct compassion

12 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Alan Roddick

The only poem I have ever written directly about dentistry is called “A Patient”. When I wrote it, some fifty years ago, James Kirkup’s “A Correct Compassion” was the only example I knew of a poem ‘about’ medicine. It is both a vivid description of a cardiac surgeon, observed by medical students, performing a mitral stenosis valvotomy, and an extended metaphor for the writing of a poem.

At the end of the operation (and the end of the poem), the surgeon’s ‘“I do not stitch up the pericardium. // It is not necessary.’” is matched by the poet’s conclusion:

For this is imagination’s other place, / Where only necessary things are done.”

The occasion of my own poem was less dramatic, but I like to think it demonstrates that a dental extraction, another occasion where ‘only necessary things are done’, can make a fitting subject for a poem.

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‘Withstanding’ by Helen Jacobs

5 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

At almost 90, Christchurch poet, lifelong environmentalist, tramper and gardener, and former Eastbourne mayor Elaine Jakobsson (pen name Helen Jacobs) has published a new poetry collection with the wonderful title Withstanding.

There are a multitude of ways to stand, all of which nourish the theme of the collection: age. Withstanding takes a clear-eyed look at the joys and difficulties of standing up, standing down, standing with, standing for, taking a stand, longstanding, understanding and, most of all, how to stand it.

Writing poems, for me, is a way of thinking about my life and interpreting it, summarising it, and as I age so my poetry takes on different themes, which might or might not be relevant to others who are also aging … I am always delighted when others find something in them.” Elaine Jakobsson (aka Helen Jacobs)

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy – and a little art with our medicine

28 November 2016 1 Comment

Dr Cindy Towns

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is thought to account for 1-2 percent of acute coronary syndromes (ACS), ACS being medicalese for what most people would call ‘heart attacks’.

Takotsubo as a diagnosis got its name from a Japanese Octopus pot which looks a little like the Takotsubo heart on echocardiography (essentially an ultrasound). Takotsubo has some more creative synonyms, including acute stress cardiomyopathy, broken heart syndrome and ‘scared to death’. It mimics a traditional heart attack but is not due to coronary artery disease. Rather, the structure of the heart balloons in places. Classically, physically or emotionally distressing events precede the presentation, but the exact mechanism of the condition remains speculative. It has been associated with earthquakes in both Japan and New Zealand.

There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in

21 November 2016 1 Comment

Max Reid

This post was originally written late on Friday 11^th November 2016, after a week of struggling to come to terms with the American election result, only to hear that afternoon of the death of poet/songwriter/musician Leonard Cohen. Adjusting to that news with a glass of wine at the ready, and Leonard’s London Concert double album playing loud enough to send the cat and dog scampering for cover, the post originally began, “Just when you thought events in the world couldn’t get any worse … we hear news that Leonard Cohen has died…”

“Anthem” Leonard Cohen, Auckland 21 December 2013 (his last concert)

Well, events in the world invariably can and do get worse, and sometimes a wee bit close to home. Within little more than 48 hours North Canterbury and Wellington had been rocked by a series of devastating earthquakes.

So this post, which was originally drafted as something of a tribute to Leonard Cohen, now serves as much as a tribute to people of Kaikoura and the surrounding areas – as they wrestle to find meaning and hope in the midst of what for them is, in so many ways, a broken world.

Poetry=Medicine?

21 November 2016 Leave a Comment

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.

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