Invisible Man

For the past three years, I’ve been guiding patients and caregivers in writing poetry to ease the emotional trauma of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Growing out of this work, I’ve launched fee-free Zoom workshops for anyone interested in making use of healing poetry. This is not so much an “academic” program as a contemplative one. A safe place to share without critique in an encouraging group environment. Not how to write better, but writing to feel better. And, of course, I do this on a volunteer basis. Last week I held the first of these “healing verses” programs. How was the initial session? Well, a woman who identified herself as a grandmother wrote what she said was her very first poem. She wasn’t even sure if it could be called a poem. It was so sweetly compelling and laden with love that I suggested she give it to her children and grandson so they can come back to it again and again to rekindle her memory after she’s gone. “Yes,” I said, “I would most certainly say it is a poem!” In my classes at the American Cancer Society’s New York City facility, Hope Lodge, we’ve found that poetry can be easy, beautiful, and uplifting. I've conducted these sessions at Hope Lodge for the past three years for patients from outside the area who are in Manhattan for treatments at the city’s oncology centers, like Memorial Sloan-Kettering. I’ve also led day-long programs at retreat centers to guide participants in writing poems to ease emotional trauma of every kind: grief, rupture of a relationship, illness, and more. My approach to healing poetry is based on the proven Expressive Writing protocol developed by Dr. James Pennebaker. At the University of Houston, he demonstrated that self-reflective writing about pent-up emotions can lift their burden, enabling the writers to find strength in their own words and thereby gain a new sense of control. His methods have been replicated more than two thousand times and have become an academic pursuit in their own right. The Wednesday Workshops have a one-hour format: • Reading and discussing a healing poem • Time for participants to draft their own poem • An “open mic” period to read their work if they want to I’ll hold these workshops starting at 7 P.M. every other Wednesday. Participants may invite any family or friends who might benefit from exploring how poetry can smoothen the rough edges of life. In the first program last week, we looked at how Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran and Langston Hughes, a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, faced up to fear by writing poems. To join our next session on June 11, all you have to do is click this link , and you’ll find my smiling face. I promise, my workshops won’t be like this: After English Class By Jean Little I used to like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I liked the coming darkness, The jingle of harness bells, Breaking—and adding to—the stillness, The gentle drift of the snow . . . But today, the teacher told us what everything stood for. The woods, the horse, the miles to go, the sleep— They all have “hidden meanings.” It’s grown so complicated now that, Next time I drive by, I don’t think I’ll bother to stop.

I received word last week that my poem “Examen” will appear in the Spring issue of Time of Singing, A Journal of Christian Poetry. I can’t decide if my ditty is simply a morose self-portrait of a grumpy old man readying to meet his maker – or a surprisingly hopeful entreaty for one more, perhaps final, love. One thing is sure. My poem was written by a guy who has too much time on his hands, pondering the ravages of age that are manifesting themselves before his eyes. The Daily Examen is a core practice of the Jesuit religious order. It calls for prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction. It’s a technique formulated by St. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, in the sixteenth century. Here's the poem. It's not the Examen Ignatius had in mind, I know. Examen I watch my body deteriorate daily, my personal slack tide far behind, that static moment when the body ebbs and yields to inevitable decline. My face is yeasty as risen dough, and flesh slides down to turn my smile to frown. Knees that jammed my Trek up mountains are worn and weary. Equilibrium goes rogue, and I clutch handrails both up and down. Eyesight disappoints, memory humiliates me at every turn. And my feet. My feet. Spawn of an alien strain whose mildewed digits disgust even veteran mycologists. A fleshy, fragile creature now, I’m wary of falling, that unwelcome herald of death spiral. Where’s the wind that powered me when I gobbled up 26.2 miles and left the pack to chase behind? Where’s the muscled mass of me that moistened the fair sex by mere presence? Turned to sponge. Only my soul remains fixed and fresh. And I’m awake to it. Awake, also, to the expectation of seeing you soon face to face. Which calms the night and floods my day with light. I’m at that awful stage of life when family members and friends are shuffling off one by one into eternity. Like lightning bugs on a June evening, their radiance seems to last just a fleeting moment, then they recede into the dark. Before the advent of helicopter parenting, we kids were allowed to play outside until it was too dark to see a thrown Spaldeen. We were creative, and made up all sorts of ad hoc games and activities. At least in New Jersey that’s what we did. When the lightning bugs appeared, we’d catch them in our hands and – using needle and thread supplied by our unknowing mothers – we’d try to string the tortured little wretches into glowing necklaces. We wanted to keep them gleaming forever like living, luminous pearls. It never worked. (Image from original oil painting by James Coates.)