Literary Arts

Calling all poets!

Click here for info on our Poetry Contest!

What We Do
• Offer group poetry and journaling to patients struggling with acute psychiatric disorders
• Offer journaling, poetry and personal book-making opportunities for at-risk pregnant women on long-term bed-rest.
• Provide free journals to patients, with guides for using them
• Curate Poetry on the Walls exhibits throughout the Medical Center
• Produce bi-annual poetry contest and publish related chapbook: open to patients, staff, families and visitors
• Facilitate weekly lunchtime Osler Literary Roundtable: readings by emerging and established poets and writers, open readings, and short story discussions

The Program
A young boy is curled on his side in his bed and can’t stop coughing. When I ask if he would like to write something, he is reluctant, but when I ask him about his home, he begins to speak quietly and intermittently.  I take down his words as he describes his yard, his two pet dogs, the path to his grandparents’ house, the wild turkeys that sometimes come out of the woods.  As he continues, he slowly sits up and begins to talk more animatedly.   He is carried away by his own story and the image of his home. He has not seen it in a year, since the beginning of his bone marrow transplant and the following rounds of treatment.  He suddenly begins to gobble like a turkey. I look up from writing and meet his mother’s gaze.  We nod, both realizing that her son has completely stopped coughing. He is sitting upright in his bed, his breathing is strong and his face animated, full of energy as he begins to describe the spiders in the carport, his basketball court…

A group of adults facing the challenges of acute mental illness gather around a table to read Yeats’ poem Lake Innisfree. In response, one woman reads aloud a journal entry she has made about the loss of her husband.  She begins to cry and the gathered patients reach out to her, relating similar stories of loss.  Later, a therapist from the unit tells me that after our poetry/journaling group a woman, who had previously refused to leave her room, has begun to emerge to be with others and is responding more positively to her treatments.

I am constantly amazed at the power of poetry, writing and the telling of our stories to help us heal, to give us strength, create community and help us take stock of our lives.