Suzanne Edison, MA, MFA

Poet • Educator

By

The Words to Say It: Writing about Illness, Trauma & Healing–excerpts

I thought I’d send out some enticing pieces from my planned readings for the course, The Words to Say It: Writing About Illness, Trauma and Healing.  Sometimes just a list of possible readings doesn’t fully bring you into the experience.
Here is a poem by Alicia Ostriker from her series “The Mastectomy Poems”, from The Crack in Everything. What I like about it is how she starts right in with her thinking, that is a universal thought. She includes the details of the body, (cells, estrogen, breast), images of women in daily life, and then how this particular diagnosis heightens (figuratively and literally) her perceptions of her everyday world.
The second piece is an excerpt from Gregory Orr’s, The Blessing. He’s a poet and essayist and his memoir is about how he dealt with accidentally killing his brother when they were both kids. In this excerpt, he’s describing trying to talk to his mother about the accident. I find his language to be both personal and the details telling (the cake with fourteen candles, his mother not touching him). I think it’s heartbreaking, see what you think.
If you think someone would be interested in taking this class, please pass this on to them. Here is the link for registering at Hugo House.
Wishing everyone a great fall of writing.
Suzanne

The Crack in Everything

“The Mastectomy Poems:”

1. THE BRIDGE

You never think it will happen to you,
What happens every day to other women.
Then as you sit paging a magazine,
Its beauties lying idly in your lap,
Waiting to be routinely waved goodbye
Until next year, the mammogram technician
Says Sorry, we need to do this again,

And you have already become a statistic,
Citizen of a country where the air,
Water, your estrogen, have just saluted
Their target cells, planted their Judas kiss
Inside the Jerusalem of the breast.
Here on the film what looks like specks of dust
Is calcium deposits.
Go put your clothes on in a shabby booth
Whose curtain reaches halfway to the floor.
Try saying fear. Now feel
Your tongue as it cleaves to the roof of your mouth.

Technicalities over, medical articles read,
Decisions made, the Buick’s wheels
Nose across Jersey toward the hospital
As if on monorail. Elizabeth
Exhales her poisons, Newark Airport spreads
Her wings–the planes take off over the marsh–
A husband’s hand plays with a ring.

Some snowflakes whip across the lanes of cars
Slowed for the tollbooth, and two smoky gulls
Veer by the steel parabolas.
Given a choice of tunnel or bridge
Into Manhattan, the granite crust
On its black platter of rivers, we prefer
Elevation to depth, vista to crawling.

The Blessing-excerpt

By

Self-care, or, What to Do so the Well doesn’t Run Dry

the many ways one can relax

After facilitating, and listening to a group of moms at a camp for kids with Juvenile Arthritis, I am thinking about the issues surrounding self-care more deeply.

It’s been over 10 years since my own child was diagnosed with a rare, autoimmune illness and I’ve been teaching and facilitating writing and support groups for many years that deal with the full complement of issues that bubble up on this life journey. But today made me remember some basics about self-care and its importance in parenting a child with any health issue.

#1 Every parent wants to be there for their child but how do you care for someone if you are a wet noodle on the floor, exhausted mentally and physically?

Corresponding concerns around this dilemma involve these questions:

Are my mom/parent needs important?  Do I deserve to take care of myself?  Even if I think the answer to these questions is yes, there’s simply no time left for me.

#2 Ah ha! the Time issue–or how to carve out space and time for yourself

Some suggestions from the moms I spoke to include: Leave a white space on your calendar.  Or, actually put something ON the calendar that is for you. Make sure you have a weekly or monthly STANDING event, like a phone call with a friend or family member, or a regular date for tea, wine or a walk.

#3 I asked them to think about what they do that is both a relief AND a pleasure. Maybe they do only something that is a relief, but I know that something that also brings pleasure is enlivening. Some other suggestions included:

a hot bath, reading a novel, getting your hair or nails “done”, taking a class in (meditation, yoga, exercise), taking a walk with your child (there’s an idea!), date night with someone.

#4 Which brings me back to the issue of, are my needs important? Again, if you can say yes to this, how do you let others (your kids, your partner/spouse/friends) know what you need?

One woman said that now that her kids are older (10 & 15) she says to them, “I have needs too, and I’m going to go to my room for awhile and be alone.”  Another woman said she says to her friends, “I need some time with you.” I also suggested that we start saying to friends and family members that “I don’t want you to fix me or my problems, I just need you to listen.”  This can be hard or a relief for some friends; it’s certainly worth trying out.

A single parent said that going to therapy was exactly what she needed and someone else made a plea for understanding mental health needs and issues. The more we talk about them and bring them out of the dark closet of shame, the better off we all are.

#5 There might be other reasons or barriers that we set up for ourselves so we don’t make time for self-care. Try to figure out what those might be and see if you can find 1 thing that you can let go of to make room. Then, do 1 thing for yourself and see what happens. Did you feel anxious not doing the thing you usually do? Did you feel good doing the new thing? Did you feel guilty?  Just notice them. Then try it again. And again.

Or find a different thing that is still self-caring but maybe doesn’t bring as much anxiety. Work up to something once a week. Then once a day, even if it’s lying on the couch with a book over your face and a cup of tea nearby. Seriously, pretty soon, your kids will learn that this is your time. And they will also learn that it’s ok to take a little time for oneself.

They will see, and feel you return to them with a bit more energy, more focus, less stress. Even for a minute or two. Win, win.

By

The Words to Say It: Writing about Illness, Trauma and Healing

I want to let you know about a 5 week course I’ll be teaching this Fall at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.

The Words to Say It: Writing about Illness, Trauma and Healing.

Course Description:
By focusing on the craft of writing we can transform personal experience into art. Readings will include excerpts from: Poetry in Medicine; The Healing Art: A Doctor’s Black Bag of Poetry; Poetry as Survival; Beauty is a Verb, and writers Alicia Ostriker, Lucia Perillo, Susan Sontag, Lucille Clifton, Anatole Broyard, and Kevin Young, among many others.

The course will be both poetry and creative non-fiction oriented. You may write in whatever form you want.

We will look at forms, how specific forms of elegy, narrative, the lyric and prose help hold and extend the language/story.
We will stretch our language capacities, looking past cliche to surprising images.
We will look at negative and positive space, e.g. what is and is not “on the page”, engaging the reader in active imagination.

Each week we will read, discuss and write. In the last class students may bring a piece of their own to workshop for feedback.

DATES: Saturdays 9/23, 9/30 (note, we will skip 10/7 as I have a prior commitment), 10/14, 10/21, 10/28.
TIME: 10 am – 12 pm
LOCATION: Hugo House, 1021 Columbia St, Seattle, WA 98104

Important dates as you spread the word:

Member Registration – Aug. 15
General Registration – Aug. 22
Scholarship Applications Due – Aug. 25
Early Bird Pricing Ends – Aug. 28

Register here.

By

The Effects of Misdirection: When the Immune System is Led Astray

I’m very excited to announce that 4Culture of King County Washington, a cultural arts program, has awarded me a grant to pursue this poetry / art / interview / writing project.  I have the great, good fortune to be partnering with the Benaroya Research Institute in this endeavor.

I am posting a project description, here, and I will make updates on the project as it moves along.