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Nursing, Poetry
The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse-Poets
edited by Judy Schaefer (Literature and Medicine Series, No. 7), 208 pp, paper, $29, ISBN 0-87338-848-8, Kent, Ohio, Kent State University Press, 2006.
JAMA. 2006;296:103-104.
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In this anthology, 15 gifted nurse-poets show their talent for poetry and prose, their love of the nursing profession, and the magic of the written word. The poems are born of nurses' skillful probing of seemingly ordinary experiences—changing a dressing, admitting a patient, or simply assessing behavior or the body's hums.
From their observations and insights, the writers give structure and meaning to experiences that defy explanation. They help nurses and physicians to relearn what many forget: that patients are our greatest teachers, that there are always lessons to be learned, and that our work matters.
In Cortney Davis's Heroics, we are reminded of our youthful earnestness in longing for the sheer adrenalin rush of something—anything—to happen on those long, late-night shifts. Theodore Deppe's poem Admission, Children's Unit confronts the horror of child abuse:
The details didn’t, of course, come out at first,
but I sensed them. The boy's refusal . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Linda Honan Pellico, PhD, APRN, Reviewer
Yale School of Nursing
New Haven, Conn
linda.pellico@yale.edu
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