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Medicine and Poetry

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:

‘It’s a powerful force, which can help us through the darkest times. I would like to see more poets in residence in the health system, more poetry books in waiting rooms, more poems on the walls, more training in creative writing for doctors, and more poems printed on primary care leaflets.’

julia darling ‘how to behave with the ill‘.

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:

‘Suffering is the access point to poetry for a lot of people: that’s when they open their ears, hearts and minds. Being there with the right words for someone in that moment – when something’s happened, when they’re in need – is a great comfort, and sometimes creates a love of poetry that can last a lifetime.

WILLIAM SIEGHART ‘THE HISTORY OF THE POETRY PHARMACY’.

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?

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Reading Reduces Stress. Fact.

Black and white image of hands holding an open book on a turqoise background. Message reads 'Take a Break with a Book'.

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.

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Secret Santa

Take home a wrapped book from our display, unwrap and read something different over the Christmas vacation. Just be sure to issue it to your smartcard in the usual way, and return it in the New Year.

If you fancy kicking back and relaxing with a Christmas film, check out our watchlist on Box of Broadcasts. Stream for free your university log in details and search ‘Medicine in Literature‘ in Public Playlists.

Happy Holidays from all of us at the Walton Library!

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Black History Month

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!

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Diversifying our collection: Our response to #BlackLivesMatter

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.

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Off The Shelf Jan 2020

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/