Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

In today’s session, we read, heard, discussed and wrote in the shadow of “Passion,” a poem by Native American author Louise Erdrich. A mix of returning and new participants from the States and abroad noted the varying shades of devotion in the poem, enacted through destruction to bring about connection. “Devotion” also conjured up associations with religious attachment, and devotionals. We began with the question of what kind of dog we each imagined in the poem, which turned out to be quite varied: one person saw a compassionate animal, and another thought of a gentle personality that stayed with the bereaved lover like a service animal. A third participant drew on the poet’s Native American heritage and its connections to spirituality, leading him to conjure a sin-eater or grief-eater. A fourth realized that she had not visualized the dog at all but more had imagined its large presence for its human companion. The excruciating pain of the human was considered: More than one person identified personally with the human’s situation of losing a lover and wanting to divest completely from that past. And we also thought about how the dog might be absorbing this grief, being so devoted that it is willing to take on this burden. Emotion and action were linked. We also appreciated how one listener felt annoyed “in my body” with both dog and human.  

The prompt, “Write about an expression of devotion” inspired responses reflecting tokens of deep meaning (“Buying a gift she didn’t know she wanted,” “a song on WhatsApp”), as well as actions (stepping away from one’s own needs to self-sacrifice for the benefit of another). Writers used different forms ranging from short/specific lists of actions to longer descriptive prose — unified by structure — describing devotion over the course of a lifetime. One writer honored a mom: “A stranger is not a stranger to her.” The last writer circled back to the Erdrich poem’s animal-companion theme, describing in vivid detail an owl diving down a chimney to rescue its mate, even at the risk of being stuck.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Saturday, June 20th at 2pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Passion
by Louise Erdrich
 
Your dog gnaws the rug you made love upon
for the last time.
When your lover left
and you rolled yourself inside the rug
to sleep in agony
your dog stayed with you.
Your dog chews out the armpits of your lover’s shirt
and shreds the underwear
you were wearing when he touched you.
That’s devotion.
The dog chews your pen and stains his tongue
then licks the white pillows.
His way of writing you a poem.
He eats the spout off the blue plastic watering can.
He starts on the porch,
a rotted board, and soon that board rips
away from the wicked red nails.
Your dog eats the nails
and does not die.
Although you have no porch,
no lover, no rug, no underwear,
you understand.
The dog is trying to eat your grief.
In helpless longing
to get close to you
he must destroy what’s close to you.

Published in the print edition 
of the December 16, 2019, issue of the New Yorker. 

Our Narrative Medicine Live Virtual Zoom session tonight brought together 27 people from across the country – and the world – to watch and listen to a video of Joshua Bennett perform “Tamara’s Opus” years ago at the White House. We listened to the artist’s words and watched his movements enhance a lament and an apology to his sister who is Deaf. He tells of the time, as a 5-year-old, he was shocked to hear his father say that there is nothing wrong with his Tamara. She is different, his father says. Viewers feel the long-ago shattering of Joshua’s innocence. How strong must have been their sibling-bond before he felt the nine letters of the word “d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t” as hammers shattering his “stained-glass innocence.” His lyrics bring sounds (of rain and crickets), which he realizes Tamara never heard and evoke images of his sister and others dancing not to sound but to the vibrations of music coming from loudspeakers cranked to the max.

His narrative takes him from before either the sister or brother was born “all those conversations we must have had in Heaven ” to the present moment when he laments “no poem…can make up for all the time that we have lost” and offers an apology by dancing his digits in Sign Language that he has learned. In so doing, Bennett shows us the power not only of opening our ears (like lotus petals) to deeply listen but also the power of learning an other’s language. Participants commented on the abyss they perceived between the two characters, and the efforts Joshua puts in to overcome it. In enjoying this beautiful performance and piece, we reflected on the ways to overcome such an abyss: by learning a new language, apologizing, or simply being present.   

In response to the prompt, “Write about shattering the silence” participants echoed back to Joshua Bennet strong visuals, sense perceptions, a list poem, the physicality of breaking cups and platters and marching in the street to shatter unjustly imposed silences. The prompt took us in many different directions in asking us to think of a silence shattered, whether it meant the novelty of introducing a new sound into a space or the tragedy of removing an ongoing sound from a scene of daily life.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Wednesday, June 17th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

“Tamara’s Opus”
by Joshua Bennett
 
Tamara has never listened
to hip-hop
Never danced
to the rhythm of raindrops
or fallen asleep to a chorus of chirping crickets
she has been Deaf
for as long as I have been alive
and ever since the day that I turned five
My father has said:
"Joshua. Nothing is wrong with Tamara.
God just makes
some people different."
And at that moment
those nine letters felt like hammers
swung gracefully by unholy hands
to shatter my stained-glass innocence
into shards that could never be pieced back together
or do anything more
than sever the ties between my sister and I.

I waited
was patient numberless years
anticipating the second
her ears would open like lotuses
and allow my sunlight sentences to seep
into her insides
make her remember all those conversations
we must have had in Heaven
back when God hand-picked us
to be sibling souls centuries ago

I still remember her 20th birthday
readily recall my awestruck eleven-year old eyes
as I watched Deaf men and women of all ages
dance in unison to the vibrations
of speakers booming so loud
that I imagined angels chastising us
for disturbing their worship
with such beautiful blasphemy
until you have seen
a Deaf girl dance
you know nothing of passion.
There was a barricade between us
that I never took the time to destroy
never for even a moment
thought to pick up a book and look up
the signs for sister
for family
for goodbye, I will see you again some day
remember the face of your little brother.
It is only now I see
that I was never willing
to put in the extra effort to love her properly
So as the only person in my family
who is not fluent in sign language
I have decided to take this time
to apologize
Tamara, I am sorry
for my silence.

But true love knows no frequency
So I will use these hands
to speak volumes
that could never be contained
within the boundaries of sound waves
I will shout at the top of my fingertips
until digits dance and relay these messages
directly to your soul
I know
that there is no poem
that can make up for all the time that we have lost
but please, if you can
just listen
as I play you a symphony
on the strings of my heart
made for no other ears on this Earth
but yours.

Brave New Voices slam champion Joshua Bennett performs "Tamaraʼs Opus
at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word 
on May 12, 2009.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

With participants from Bahrain, Calgary, Massachusetts, Northern Ontario, Norwich, England, Pennsylvania, San Francisco and more, we began by looking at a video of Maya Angelou reciting –or more accurately, performing her poem, “We Wear the Mask.”  The video begins with her explaining that the poem was written to honor a maid she routinely encountered on a city bus, whose seeming-laugh Angelou recognized as “that survival instinct.”  Her poem draws, she explained, upon Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1892 poem of the same name.  Despite the wonkiness of the video reception on Zoom, we were all deeply affected, as we went on to read the poem silently to ourselves.  Participants remarked on Angelou’s moving and emotional presentation, noting their initial reticence to react, which was perhaps due to the personal and emotional impact of the piece, a deference to or in reverence of the recitation, or the feeling that one needed to “meet the challenge” of its presentation.  As we proceeded, the responses to both the performance and the written word took us into the complexity of laughter as a human response, how it can express irony, submission, defiance, self-protection   –and what it can conceal.  The on-goingness of racial suffering and the presence of generational trauma expressed in the poem were observed, “There in those pleated faces/I see the auction block,” as was and the poem’s final note of gratitude to those who wore a mask of submission, “From living on the edge of death/They kept my race alive”.

The responses to the prompt, “Write about the last mask you encountered,” were stunning in their depth, and seemed to answer the poem in a way.  Participants bravely experimented in their writing and gave voice to both individual and community experiences, of feeling marginalized and adjusting personal behavior, to navigate spaces that at times may not accept their identities.  It was a remarkable session! 

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Monday, June 15th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

We Wear the Mask
BY Maya Angelou

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It shades our cheeks and hides our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O my God, our tears
To thee from tortured souls arise.
And we sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world think otherwise,
We wear the mask!

When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that’s walked,
A song was spoke,
I laugh so hard, I almost choke,
When I think about myself.

Seventy years in these folks’ world.
The child I works for calls me "girl";
I say, “Yes ma’am,” for working’s sake.
I'm too proud to bend
And too poor to break,
So, I laugh, until my stomach ache,
When I think about myself.

My folks can make me split my side,
I laughed so hard, I nearly died.
The tales they tell, sound just like lyin',
They grow the fruit, but eat the rind.
I laugh, until I start to cryin',
When I think about myself,
And my folks, and the little children.

My Fathers sit on benches,
Their flesh count every plank,
The slats leave dents of darkness
Deep in their withered flank,

And they nod, like broken candles,
All waxed and burnt profound
They say 'But, Sugar, it was our submission
That made your world go round.'

There in those pleated faces
I see the auction block,
The chains and slavery's coffles,
The whip and lash and stock.

My Fathers speak in voices
That shred my fact and sound,
They say, 'But Sugar, it was our submission
And that made your world go round.'

They've laughed to shield their crying ,
They shuffled through their dreams
They step 'n' fetched a country
And wrote the blues in screams.

I understand their meaning,
It could and did derive,
From living on the ledge of death,
They kept my race alive.

By wearing the mask.