Poetry - Corpus

Nurses and poetry

31 October 2016 Leave a Comment

Lorraine Ritchie

Calling all creative nurses! I am currently compiling a New Zealand anthology of poetry by nurses, which is due to be published on International Nurses’ Day, 12 May 2017. Details of eligibility and how to submit your work can be found below.

“What does nursing have to do with poetry?” it might be asked. Do nurses write poetry? Do they read it? Most lovers of poetry are familiar with doctor poets and writers such as Dannie Abse, William Carlos Williams, and Glenn Colqhoun (to cite a local example). But how many nurse poets do you know of?
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The poetry of protein biochemistry

24 October 2016 1 Comment

Shereen Asha Murugayah

Hello. I am a protein biochemist, researching ways to prevent infections in surgical implants. I am also a poet. I have been writing poetry since I was eleven (so, about half is adolescent angst) and have been a laboratory scientist for the last four years.

The first time I experienced the joy of poetry was when a teacher dissected “Monsoon History” by Shirley Lim Geok-Lin. It was about sex—lol. The first time I believed I could write poetry was when I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies. Big game-changer.

Healing the scars of persecution

10 October 2016 1 Comment

Barbara Brookes

How do people heal the scars of persecution? This question arose for us when visiting Dachau, where a relative spent about a month in late 1938. Unlike many others, he was fortunate in being released, promising to leave Germany. In fact he had been trying to get his family out for some time, but being over 40 made it difficult to get entry anywhere (New Zealand had turned him down earlier in 1938). Acceptance came—for about 800 Jewish refugees—from the Dominican Republic, where the dictator, Trujillo, accepted immigrants while at the same time treating Haitians ruthlessly. Trujillo’s dictatorship is brilliantly depicted by the Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, in The Feast of the Goat. [Read more…] about Healing the scars of persecution

Swapping the scalpel for the pen: a surgeon writes

3 October 2016 4 Comments

Kevin Pringle

The first poem I wrote about a patient was when I was working in Iowa City at the University of Iowa as a professor of Paediatric Surgery. Matt was a classmate of our younger daughter Fiona in Junior High (roughly equivalent to New Zealand’s Intermediate). He developed a tumour on one of his ribs, which I attempted to remove, unsuccessfully.

Bittersweet. Bitter more than sweet.
I did my best, and felt I let you down.”

– from “Matt” by Kevin Pringle

To pergola or not to pergola: on not retiring useful hands

26 September 2016 Leave a Comment

Matt Blackwood

Tasty medicinal words! Poems by Alan Roddick

26 September 2016 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

… Now we insert the point
of an elevator in the peridontal space.”

– from “A Patient” by Alan Roddick.

There are not many poets who can confidently use the phrase ‘peridontal space’ in a poem. Indeed, I know only one: dentist poet Alan Roddick, whose long awaited second collection, Getting it Right, has just appeared. It follows at a stately remove from its predecessor, The Eye Corrects, which was published in 1967. The poems collected in Getting it Right feel honed, polished, clear. They celebrate the natural world, love and life (there is only the one poem which overtly mentions dentistry, so dentophobics need not fear opening the book), and Roddick brings his steady eye and hand to every line.