The Use of Poetry

There are few things I can “fix” in my work with the aging when, at the end of the day, so much is broken. My husband, a hospitalist who spends a fair proportion of his days tending to the frail elderly, once said his tools were insufficient, that he often felt like he was simply using a bit more duck-tape and bailing wire before sending them back out.

I was called in not long ago to help find a landing place for someone after the family did an “intervention” for opioid addiction. I spent a day and night making calls to every wise person with the right expertise in my digital rolodex, trying to find just the right place with an open bed, an evidence-based approach, and experience with this specific kind of addiction. By all accounts, according to many, the family went with a program with an excellent reputation. They signed the papers, dropped their loved one off and let out a sigh of relief when they were on the road home. The tiny, but critical detail we didn't take into account was the willingness of this family member to agree to getting help.

What can be said, of any comfort, to a family in these or similarly distressing situations?

William Carlos Williams, a physician and poet, once wrote, “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”

What does poetry have to do with aging?

While I am able to offer information and support, instructions and guidance to many of my clients on the road trip through end-of-life situations, for some, these tools are insufficient to the task... Their family member resists help. A dire diagnosis can’t be reversed. A bed in Memory Care simply isn’t affordable. What to do?

I often reach for a poem. I have many pinned above my desk, culled from over thirty years of exchanging poetry with a small group of women I've known since graduate school. Below are some favorites. Please send me yours.