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Introduction / about my poetry...  

My Poetry is about Hope and Despair; about Celebration and Sorrow. But mostly, it is about Hope. Forms of expression implicit in symbolic language; poetry and verse, song, prayer and ritual, have served a role in all cultures and societies to dispel the tears and foster the healing of death and human loss.  Why does the poetry of death triumph as a source of enduring inspiration and hope?

Though our spirits may fade and our viscera bleed, we are enabled
by the agents of our humanity empowered by ancestral song and promise.

Comfort may be achieved through the transfer of the poet's feelings into the reader or listener's mind. It transports the reader from the distractions and influences of the outside world inward to the internal rhythms and solace of the personal soul. The poet becomes a healer and his poetry his staff. Through verse and meter, free of inhibition yet full with expression, the poet may articulate a sensitivity and empathy and provoke this introspection and inner peace. A poem is transformed into a message of hope. There is wonderment and magic in the words of a poem. Each word is selected for its individual meaning within the context of the entire poem. A few properly selected words can move the reader to tears and awaken the primal emotions of joy, promise, despair and hope. A poet should evoke emotion in his work and write as if each poem is written with the poet’s last words.

The language of poetry, within the broader context of its 'parent body’ (literature,) has always had as its great themes, love, loss and death. The inclusion of hope to these thematic elements is worthwhile if not essential for, (as humans) we have the capacity to bring hope to a despair that is uniquely created by our humanity and our human conditions.

As an Obstetrician, my professional career has involved a striving to bring comfort and healing to children, born and yet to born, and to mothers through their years of childbearing and beyond. It has been the cause in my life. I have been uplifted by the triumphs of birth and healing and depressed by the failures. Yet I have always tried to look beyond the failures in search of the triumphs. I have counseled patients at the darkest times of their lives, when their children have died, and I have turned to the comfort of personal reflection, poetry and self-expression to better help me help my patients. I have learned that by writing down thoughts which might elucidate my feelings more clearly than the spoken word, I have become a better physician. 

“…Poetry{sic}gives the patient a voice for his or her suffering. It may not alter the activity of the disease, but in merely providing a voice it comforts the patient in ways that no medication can.

If “ medicine protects life then(sic) literature interprets it.”

"Art, poetry(sic) is human intelligence playing over the natural scene, ingeniously affecting it toward the fulfillment of human purpose."

"The Poet's gift… awakens in a special way the emotions of those who feel wordless in the face of loss."

"By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other."

"By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other." Rita Dove

"Communications is the web of human society. The structure of a communication system with its more or less well defined channels is in a sense the skeleton of the social body which envelops it. The content of communications is of course the very substance of human intercourse. The flow of communications determines the direction and the pace of dynamic social development."

 

"By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other." Rita Dove

"Each for himself gathered up  the cherished purposes of life; 

its aims and ambitions;  its dearest affections;  

And flung all with life itself the scale of battle."  Anonymous  

Our cries are muted weepings of despair as the child so longed for is not born, or is not born alive, or cannot be conceived. Pained by these losses, our lives seem devoid of hope. Yet we prevail, for within each of us is a timeless, enduring spark of divine hope, a uniquely human greatness that permits us to challenge adversity and courageously face the unexplainable suffering of our souls and bodies. To realize the existence of this divine hope is a most cherished purpose, for with it our lives have promise and reason. Infertility, pregnancy loss, neonatal illness and subsequent death, are among the most painful losses we can experience, for they deny us a family and leave sightless our vision for immortality through generations of the future. Moreover, a child not to be born is likewise denied the delight to revel in the simple beauty and endless wonder of this divine hope.     

My entire professional career has involved a striving to bring comfort and healing to children, born and yet to born, and to mothers through their years of childbearing and beyond. It has been the cause in my life. I have been uplifted by the triumphs of birth and healing and depressed by the failures. Yet I have always tried to look beyond the failures in search of the triumphs. This volume is about this search. It is an uninhibited expression of my encounters with the emotions and the mystical spirit of my participation in the processes of birth, of life, and of death. It is a testimony of my hopeful optimism that I have shared and encountered with my patients through the years, as I have lived and breathed my role of physician.    

These poems have been written for children, mothers, fathers, and friends with whom I have shared a part of their lives, or they, a part of mine. I have given or sent these poems to them or their families, and when appropriate have recited them as eulogies at their funerals. The notes include brief summaries of the inspirations for many of the poems. The others are simply defined by their title.    

Through the years, it has been my catharsis to write about my patient's angst and fortunes and to include them in a volume such as this serves to recognize the painful voids in their lives, and to honor the triumphs of their victories. Also included are poems that offer a more global insight into my personal struggles with issues of life's hope and defeats.