Badruddeen, via Flickr

The poem below, originally published in our May 2005 issue, is by Veneta Masson, MA, RN. It’s a “found poem,” a form of poetry in which the poet assembles phrases selected from a source or sources. The lines here come “from actual posts to an Internet bulletin board,” but they could as easily be comments on AJN‘s Facebook page! The author is a nurse and writer living in Washington, DC (more about her work can be found here).—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Nurses Week—What Did You Get?
Hi, everyone! Just curious to see what you received for Nurses Week.

Denim shirts with the company logo

Swiss Army–type knives with fourteen blades

Carnations in dollar-shop vases

One wilted rose

Soap on a rope

I think I’m worth more than this

A live band at the Holiday Inn

A potato bar luncheon

If you weren’t there, you got nada

Nothing

Not a thing

A PA announcement thanking the nurses

We dug out our caps & wore them all day
our VP of Nursing came to the unit and stayed for an hour
we sat with her & shared our stories of why we went into nursing

We got pizza one day (if you were there) and ice cream one day (if you were there)

Rolos, Skittles and M&Ms—give me the tools to do […]