Patricia Wellingham-JonesPOETRY FITS MY BODYThe poems first bubbled forth in 1992 when I was trying physical therapy to avoid surgery on a deteriorating cervical spine. For more than a decade I'd been doing research and writing scientific papers and articles on health and handwriting, then added to the mix garden writing and photography. Surgery brought a sudden stop to bending over a microscope and camera lens. I did not wake up a quadriplegic (a real possibility), was thrilled to wiggle fingers and toes as I came out of anesthesia, and demanded pen and paper. The neurosurgeon had forewarned the staff and, amused, they provided these tools. A year later he and I co-authored a paper published in Perceptual and Motor Skills,1 complete with MRI pictures of my neck, on the effect of cervical spine surgery on handwriting, so that was an interesting use of a bad situation. Mostly though, in this time of learning to live left-handed and coping with a new kind of chronic pain (along with lower spine surgical aftermaths), the poems rumbled in my head. I kept scribbling poems, got asked for occasional articles or essays. Short stories spilled forth, even got published. Oh, what joy! I discovered I loved writing the short forms, the free forms, the mini stories that turned up on the page. Poetry fit my body. I couldn't write for long stretches, nor could I again consider the detailed, labor-intensive projects giving me data for scientific articles. Further, I'd fallen into a new cycle in my life, and didn't want to. This cycle also taught me about the way I write. For instance, the stories and articles come straight from brain to fingers to keyboard to monitor screen. No problem. Boom, it's up there. The poems, though, insist on a different path. They come when they want (it's been a dry several months, but more on that later), in the form they want, and they need finger on pen, ink to paper to feel right. The physical, textural contact of words and paper seems essential. I'm thankful that, as years passed, I regained most use of my right hand so I can read my handwriting again. The poems would have had a mad scramble otherwise. Early on, I decided I wrote for my own pleasure. I didn't have a goal or purpose or message, I was simply trying to catch in a succinct way events that happened around me. The narrative style came naturally and life was rich with interesting small moments. I had no training in writing, so I attended conferences and workshops when I could, learned a lot, threw much away. By the time cancer paid its horrible call, at least I was ready, poem-wise. I wrote my way through that process and found, as many do, that the writing helped the healing. Not curing of the body, but healing of the spirit. My husband and a friend pushed me to collect some of those poems and that became the chapbook, Don't Turn Away: Poems about breast cancer2. A few years ago I helped set up and now lead a healing writing group at our local cancer center.3, 4 Time passed and my dear husband Roy entered the last phases of his life. Again, I wrote my way through, catching on paper the things that were happening. This resulted in End-Cycle: Poems about caregiving.5 The poems in End-Cycle were written at random as Roy and I progressed through the last stages of his life, including the development of dementia caused by numerous strokes. I knew from my experience with cancer there would be a book about caregiving someday and I hoped it might touch people as Don't Turn Away has. After all, caregiving has always been with us and, with our increasing aging population, will become even more necessary. When the call for Palabra Productions chapbook contest came, I thought, "Why not?" and bundled up a set of poems just under the deadline. To my surprise, that collection won. This proved a mixed blessing, as it wasn't what I might have chosen for the complete book at a later date. Publication snags dragged out for months until I gave up and took over myself. By then Roy had died; his process was complete. And I had poems illustrating the whole, not just the first three-quarters of our journey together. I assembled this chapbook the way I've done all the others. One day I sat on the living room floor with all my poems on caregiving in a stack. I sorted them by logical sequence and chronology into piles, then chose the best of each lot for the book. I shifted, revised, rethought for several days until the arrangement felt right. I knew I needed a poem to show the start of his decline, so that's the one I'm using here to show how I work in revision. I belong to a critique group, Skyway Poets, and those women gave valuable feedback on the poems. First draft: Fall Final draft: Fall Collection complete, I sent it to a couple of poet friends for their input. They made a few suggestions, including omitting one poem which I've since regretted (pointing out that sometimes we need to ignore everybody else and just do what feels right to us, no matter what). Because it's a favorite of mine, and shows that special fleeting time (the final rally, the hospice nurse calls it) at the end of Roy's life, I enclose it here. It truly was a 'gift poem', needing very little tinkering. Maybe the Last Time I was, and am, surprised to find myself regarded as a writer in the disability literature arena, as that has never been my aim. I write solely for myself. I'm honored that the work is sometimes useful and delighted when it gets published, but am bemused to find myself here, even though my body does qualify, as caregiver for someone with dementia does, too. Last year I dropped into yet another new cycle, literally. This capable woman who can do anything (oh, the lies we tell ourselves) was up on a ladder fixing a broken eave - and fell off. Wrecked my knee, had another bout of physical therapy and, so far, have avoided surgery. Desire fell off that ladder with me. For months I barely wrote except for the cancer center writing group. I developed polymyalgia rheumatica, further eroding energy and desire. Then poet friend, Stephani Schaefer, and I started getting together for free writes and the poems ambled back again. They're different now, I'm writing some strange things as a result of prompts, and it's a thrill seeing what this brain is still able to produce. Mostly I'm still a storyteller in verse, but many of today's poems explore places I've never been before. That's OK with me, anywhere the words take me makes an interesting ride. Below is an example of the new direction recent poems are taking, results of trigger phrases that leap off the pages of assorted poetry books and journals. Steph and I listen to the phrase, write for three to five minutes, read our scribbles, then do it again. At the end of an hour and a half and one large pot of tea, we surface and blink in surprise at the 10 to 15 poems caught in our notebooks. Some are worth keeping, some not, and we feel good. First draft: The Question Final draft: The Question Sheila Black says in her recent essay "… within the experience of a particular disability insights of unique value often emerge."6 I agree, and reflect on the unexpected gift these disabilities confer. That forced step back from the busy life occurring with each new failure of the body takes me deeper inside, allows more time for mulling, helps me get priorities straight. I'm thankful for this, once I get over the rebellion and anger. My life feels infinitely richer than it did before. Notes:
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