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Our very own member of staff, Helen Shaddock, has donated her recent publication, The Thing Part 1, to the Medicine in Literature Collection.

Published as a limited edition by artizine, The Thing, is a collection of the artist’s poetry and prose— poignant, candid and humorous reflections on her experience of living with eating distress, OCD, and autism.

Helen invites us into her world. Revealing with straight talking honesty and humour the things that make her tick and the systems that she creates to get her through each day.

We asked Helen to give us an insight into her writing process and creating the publication:

During the pandemic I began doing a daily diary covering topics such as activities (things I’d done during the day), podcasts and audiobooks I’d listened to, my song of the day, films I’d watched and so on.

The daily diaries were a good place to write briefly about any reflections or thoughts, but I increasingly found I wanted somewhere to write longer pieces. This is when I began writing ‘The Thing’. I used writing as a means of processing my feelings and it helped to get my thoughts and experiences on the page. When the lockdowns ended I wrote less frequently, but over the past year I have had an urge to write more again. The Thing includes a mixture of some of the writing that I revisited from the pandemic and newer material written over the past year.

How did you decide on the order of the texts within the publication?

I was conscious of wanting to set a scene at the beginning, so the first one that I chose gives some context and provides the reader with a kind of introduction. My hope is that after this, when they read the more abstract pieces, they have a bit of a better understanding of where those are coming from. I also wanted to vary the tone throughout the publication. Some of the texts are really quite heavy. Some of them are lighter in tone. So when structuring the publication I tried to create a journey so the reader moves through the texts with ease, and I dispersed the heavy texts throughout. The same is for the length of the texts. For instance, a longer text would be followed by a shorter text.

Can you tell us about your use of colour in the publication.

I use colour as a way of luring the audience in. Some of the topics of conversation within the publication are hard hitting, they’re honest, they’re not particularly easy topics to discuss, and therefore I kind of wonder whether it needs to be cheered up a bit through the use of colour.

Please talk a little about your use of language and formatting.

I try and make the language as relatable as possible. Often the way that I write is a direct relation to how I think. Frantic Thoughts hardly changed at all in the editing. It’s almost like verbatim; the thoughts that I had at the time. I remember the day significantly; I just had to write, and pretty much wrote it as it exists now. Whereas some of the other pieces that I started right at the beginning of the pandemic have gone through a lot more editing and have morphed and changed. I have tried to use the formatting of the text to emphasise the tone of the writing. For example, Frantic Thoughts is a block of justified text consisting of short sentences. This is because my thoughts were very punchy. Abrupt. To the point. With no space for consideration. Overwhelming. A mass of information.

The Thing is now available to buy from arted.online in a limited edition of 250. Each publication is signed and numbered by the artist.

artED is a digital space exploring eating distress through art practice. artED evolved out of the graphic-art diaries that Helen began making at the start of the pandemic to stay connected to family and friends. With an archive of over 1800 (and counting!) artED is born out of Helen’s interest to explore the contents of the diaries and show how she makes sense of the world through her art.

“Recording my daily activities kept me stimulated and motivated to take a walk, watch a film, listen to a podcast, or make a drawing. I got into the habit of posting the diaries every day on social media and my confidence grew as more and more people connected with them. Gradually, as time went on, they became a way for me to share my experience of living with eating distress, OCD and autism. I hope that by being open about my experiences I can support others in similar situations and raise understanding of neurodiversity and eating distress.”

Helen Shaddock

You can follow artED on twitter, instagram and facebook, and if you have any questions or comments you can email her.

Twitter: @artED_online
Instagram: @arted.online
Facebook: arted.online
Email: hello@arted.online

The relationship between medicine and poetry has existed for thousands of years. From Apollo, the ancient Greek god of medicine, music, and poetry, to the Greek doctor Soranus who used poetry to treat mental health conditions. In more modern times, John Keats reflected on his experience in the medical field in both in his poetry, and in his belief that doctors and poets played a complementary role in healing.

So what brings these seemingly disparate fields together. Let’s try to unravel some of the ways in which they are interconnected? First and foremost, both poetry and medicine are concerned with the human experience. Whist medicine is generally concerned with matters of the human body, poetry is a vehicle for expression of the psyche. Both are tied deeply to the complexities of what it means to be human.

Perhaps the most surprising thread that weaves medicine and poetry together is the art of language and communication. Both medical professionals and poets need to be able to communicate complex or abstract ideas in concise and meaningful ways. Whilst it’s clear that a medical professional must explain procedures in terms patients can understand, and a poet must communicate the nuances of human emotion and experience in a way that resonates with others, what’s interesting is that the use of imagery and metaphors in poetry can help to create meaning in medical concepts that are difficult to explain or process. Writing poetry about medical disorders is as valuable a practice for doctors, reflecting on their own experiences of treating illness in patients, as it is for patients finding a way to process and come to terms with illness.

The concept that poetry can help cure us by giving us words to help find order in the chaos of ill health is the legacy of Julia Darling. Julia passionately believed that ‘poetry should be part of every modern hospital’. She felt that the language of poetry can confront the language of pain, not just for poets but for everyone:

The legacy of Julia’s work has inspired a resurgence in the use of poetry as therapy. William Sieghart, founder of the Forward Arts Foundation (and Poetry Prize) and National Poetry Day, published prescriptions of poetry for therapeutic purposes in The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-true prescriptions for the heart, mind and soul, and The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More prescriptions for courage, healing and hope. His work was popularised on BBC and Radio 4. He believed that:

You may have heard of Deborah Alma, or The Emergency Poet? She fully subscribes to the concept of poetry as therapy and has been dispensing poems for many years, first from the back of her vintage ambulance and now from the world’s first dedicated Poetry Pharmacy, following a ‘consultation’.

Former Nurse-Verse to The Emergency Poet, Sue Spencer uses poetry to facilitate well-being in education and healthcare. As assistant editor to the BMJ Humanities, she believes that poetry can bolster people through challenging times. During her time as teaching fellow at Newcastle University, you may remember the Library facilitating an event named A Poetry Remedy where Sue offered poetry remedies following a personal exchange. This was was held in collaboration with National Poetry Day in 2017 and subsequent Off The Shelf sessions were a great success, held in conjunction with our Study Well@NCL campaign.

The interdisciplinary link between poetry and medicine has also been a source of creative expression and the focus of the International Hippocrates Symposium and Prize for Poetry and Medicine. The symposium draws together perspectives on medical themes such as the effects of poetic creativity on the experience of illness by patients, medical professionals and the wider community; the history, evolution, and future of medical science; and poetry as therapy. (Poetry, Medicine, and the International Hippocrates Prize, Donald R. J. Singer & Michael Hulse, Perspectives| The Art of Medicine| Volume 375, Issue 9719| p976-977, March 20, 2010). The 10th annual international conference on poetry and medicine was held as a partnership between the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts and the Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice. Hosted at the International Centre For Life, a nod was given to the life, work and legacy of Julia Darling in a presentation ‘Changing the vocabulary of pain’ with Catherine Ayres, Cynthia Fuller, Emma Holliday, and Sean O’Brien.

Zooming out slightly and looking at the bigger picture, many higher education institutions have included medical humanities to the curricula in medical education, in a bid to mold compassionate as well as competent doctors. But, how does poetry, the arts and humanities enhance medical education? Genres such as poetry present a lens through which to view the perspectives of patients experiencing illness. Gaining a broader understanding of how illness impacts the lives of patients, their families and the wider community, brings a human dimension to the practice of medicine. As the patient population is diverse in terms of culture, values and beliefs, representations in the medical humanities can help to promote a broader understanding of the ways in which different experiences can impact on health, health inequalities and health outcomes, ultimately generating more inclusive patient care. This is the very crux of the purpose and value of the Medicine in Literature collection.

Hopefully this exploration of the relationship between medicine and poetry has cast a light on the ways in which the disciplines are more interconnected than might first appear. Why not try reading some of the medicine and poetry volumes in our collection and make up your own mind?

Most of us relate to the fact that losing yourself in a book is a great form of escapism and relaxation, but did you know that reading has been proven to reduce stress levels, lower heart rate, and ease tension in the muscles more effectively than other methods? No? Then read on…

According to research carried out by Mindlab International at the University of Sussex, reading for only 6 minutes reduces stress levels by 68%, making it more effective than listening to music 61%, having a cuppa 54%, taking a walk by 42%, or playing video games 21%. Dr. David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist who conducted the study agrees that reading a book is the ultimate relaxation but goes further to say, “This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness.”

Researchers believe that the concentration required for reading has a physiological effect on the brain, engages the imagination and stimulates creativity, all contributing to a shutdown of the emergency fight or flight response. As the stress hormones dissipate, the fear centre of the brain becomes less active and the rationalisation areas of the brain take over. This shift in the brain makes you feel calmer and more in control.

Next time you feel overwhelmed, pick up a book from our Medicine in Literature Collection and feel the stress melt away. As always, happy reading!

Lewis, D. (2009), Galaxy Stress Research, Mindlab International, Sussex University, UK.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement and our continued committment to diversifying the Medicine in Literature Collection, we are celebrating the achievements and contributions of Black writers across the globe, by throwing a promotional spotlight on the literary works and stories about belonging and cross-cultural identity. Please feel free to dip in! Let’s continue the work of raising awareness and challenging racism in our society, celebrating diversity by increasing positive representation for all and checking our own privilege.

If you’d like to learn more about Black British History, including the historical roots of racism and the Windrush Scandal, please see our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Library Guide https://libguides.ncl.ac.uk/edi/raceequality. The following YouTube clip featuring Akala is a great introduction!

Since we took over the running of the Medicine in Literature collection, we’ve been working to broaden its perspective by adding books on health, illness and medicine written by people of colour and other groups who are marginalised by systemic discrimination, such as the trans community and people with disabilities.

The current global discussions surrounding systemic racism and inequality have reaffirmed our commitment to this work but also made us re-evaluate the ways in which we’re doing this, to make sure we’re doing this in the right way, asking the right questions and looking in the right places for new resources to add to the collection.

We’ve written this blog post to outline the work we’re going to do to address some of the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter protests and also highlight some recent additions to the collection by writers of colour.

As our library’s medical students will go on to treat people from all walks of life, the main aim of Medicine in Literature, and the wider Medical Humanities, is to help develop a deeper understanding of how a person’s experiences, values, and culture can affect their health. In addition, our students come from diverse backgrounds and we want to ensure they see themselves reflected in our resources.

Since we became curators of the collection we’ve prioritised diversifying the collection’s resources to ensure it’s inclusive in its representation of the patient population, and that it gives voice to a variety of experiences and reflections on the human condition from a breadth of social and cultural viewpoints. To this end, we’re committed to continually reassessing our collection to ensure it includes voices from underrepresented groups in society who are marginalised because of ethnicity, class, gender, dis-ability or sexual orientation. The conversations and debates arising from the Black Lives Matter protests have made us consider whether we could be doing this more effectively, and we wanted to outline some of the ways in which we’re going to shape our collection in future in response to these issues.

Firstly, we’ve resolved to be much more proactive in seeking out new additions to the collection by Black authors and other under-represented groups, rather than waiting for people to recommend them to us. We’ll be keeping up to date with releases from independent publishers owned by people of colour (there’s a great list here) rather than relying mainly on newspaper reviews, book prize shortlists and Amazon.

Secondly, we’ll be seeking to add more resources to the collection specifically looking at the impact of racism and discrimination on mental and physical health. We’ve recently added the non-fiction anthology The Colour of Madness, which brings together the experiences of people from BAME backgrounds with lived experience of mental illness.

Thirdly, we’re committing ourselves to personally reading much more widely in our search for books to add to the collection. To begin with, we’ll be working our way through the Diverse Spines reading challenge booklist and adding any books from this list that would be a good fit for the collection.

As mentioned above, we’re committed to educating ourselves and amplifying Black and other underrepresented voices in the Medicine in Literature collection, and sourcing new material ourselves rather than relying on others to do this work for us. However, if there is a book or author that you feel would be a good addition to the collection, we always welcome recommendations – you can use the suggestions box on the front page of this guide to get in touch with us.

Here are some recent additions to our collection by Black authors – we’ll be adding new resources as soon as we’re back at work in the Walton Library.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Human: Voices of Tomorrow’s Doctors edited by Tolu Kehinde
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

We’re aware that we have a long way to go in diversifying our collection – it’s an ongoing concern for us and we’re continuously reading, learning and educating ourselves on issues related to this. For more information about the University’s response to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, click here.

We welcomed the wonderful Sue Spencer back to both the Walton and Law Library last week. Once again she spun her magic and inspired both staff and students with her wisdom, wit, and of course poetry remedies. One of the students at the Law Library was so moved by the experience that she’s written a post about it. Read more here https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/subject-support/2020/01/17/guest-post-off-the-shelf/