Posts Tagged ‘art of nursing’

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Those Who Wait: Recent Work in ‘Art of Nursing’

December 19, 2011

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Beach Stone Found by mscaprikell, via Flickr

“I held that stone / in my hand for hours while they split your bones,” says the narrator of Janet Parkinson’s poem “Talisman,” which appears this month in Art of Nursing. The poem speaks to the tremendous strain of waiting for the outcome of a loved one’s emergency surgery. It’s about the  need for connection over great distances, for a “stone constant” in the face of grave uncertainty. The poet’s voice is unsentimental and steady, and the poem, just seven lines, itself feels almost talismanic. (Art of Nursing is always free online—just click through to the PDF file.)

In Roger Davies’s poem “Preparing to Pretend to Knit at the Chemotherapy Clinic,” featured in October’s Art of Nursing, a husband also waits, feeling helpless. “I’ll choose the long, elegant needles,” he says, imagining homespun wools dyed in autumn colors. Recalling his mother’s “nonchalant / competence” at the craft, he longs for the solace found in knowing what to do—even if it’s only how to hold the needles. In the poem’s last lines, the narrator says, “I could look out the window / to this fading autumn day.” But it’s clear that he’s not quite ready to see that view yet.

The Waiting Room: Norma, copyright 2010 Rebecca Thomas

Rebecca Thomas’s painting “The Waiting Room: Norma,” featured in November, depicts the artist’s grandmother, who gazes out at us, her expression both yearning and fierce. She seems to lean forward slightly into a blurred foreground, much as one might lean into an unknown future. About her grandmother, Thomas writes:  “She lived through lymphoma. Her husband didn’t. Now, the cancer and my grandfather are gone from everywhere but her face in this moment—her ‘waiting face,’ right before the smile.”

We invite you to pause with these works for a few minutes and listen for what resonates within you. And if you’re interested in submitting your own work to Art of Nursing—we consider visual art, “flash” fiction, and poetry—email me for guidelines: sylvia[dot]foley[at]wolterskluwer.com.

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Posted in art and nursing, patient perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Compassion for Those Among Us: Recent Poems in ‘Art of Nursing’

August 12, 2011

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Faded rose texture, by Calsidyrose via Flickr

In Carolyn Scarbrough’s poem “A Rose By Any Other Name” (Art of Nursing, August), a nurse sees an “opaque rose, unfurling” on a CT scan of an infant’s brain. Recognizing this as “evidence of violent acts,” she knows the outcome will almost certainly be tragic. Yet when she looks from the scan to the exhausted young father, another memory shifts her thoughts from “trauma to love.” With each reading, this poem reveals more about the intertwining of outrage and compassion. (Art of Nursing is always free online—just click through to the PDF file.)

“I try / to meditate on emptiness, // receive the next lungful, ignore / my prattling mind,” says the narrator of Risa Denenberg’s poem “Three-Part Breath” (Art of Nursing, July). The poem’s title refers to a yoga breathing practice, one built on trust; as the yoga teacher says, “There will always be // another inhalation.” Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in art and nursing, children's health, home care nursing, nursing perspective, spirituality and nursing, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Bearing Witness: April’s ‘Art of Nursing’ and Cover Art

April 14, 2011

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

In “Palm Sunday,” the poem featured in this month’s Art of Nursing, nurse and poet Rachel Betesh evokes the prolonged anguish of those who tend the dying. A man lies “sick and stained” in a bed, leaves his food untouched, and “hardly speaks anymore.” His wife and sons lament “the sin of the too-long moment”; time does not heal, but gapes like an “open wound between sickness and dying.”

A lesser poem might have slipped into sentimentality. But Betesh’s characters are a lively, indomitable bunch. “Pop!” the man’s sons say, visiting; you can feel their vigor. His wife remembers a baked potato he’d once given her, and her response: “You gonna marry me or what?” Indeed, it’s through witnessing, hearing the family’s stories, that the nurses can offer some comfort. They cannot heal the man, but they can “pack the wound, and listen.” (Art of Nursing is always free online—just click through to the PDF file.)

Windows and Doors by Paula Giovanini-Morris

This month’s cover art, a work of embroidery by nurse and fiber artist Paula Giovanini-Morris, explores the concept of memory and illustrates its mechanisms, the neurons and synapses through which the brain registers, encodes, and retrieves events. The piece, titled “Windows and Doors,” was prompted by another kind of witnessing: the artist’s visits to her mother, who was suffering from the early stages of dementia.

AJN senior editorial coordinator Alison Bulman spoke with Giovanini-Morris, who explained, “As I watched [my mother] search for words to express herself and attempt to recall recent events, I was struck by a sadness, realizing that in a short period of time the mother I knew might be replaced by someone who had no idea who I was.” Giovanini-Morris also acknowledged that she faces the possibility that she might eventually suffer from dementia herself. For more on this artist and her work, read this month’s On the Cover.

If you’re interested in submitting your own work to Art of Nursing—we consider visual art, very short “flash” fiction, and poetry—send me an email (sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com) for more information.

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Posted in art and nursing, home care nursing, nurses, nursing perspective, palliative care, patient perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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The Shape of a Woman: Two Poems in ‘Art of Nursing’

February 4, 2011

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Abstract ice patterns by net_efekt, via Flickr

“I think about the woman / wilting // on the pillow of the steering wheel,” begins Stacy R. Nigliazzo’s poem “Sketch,” featured in this month’s Art of Nursing department. As the title suggests, the poem sketches out a scene, the immediate aftermath of a car accident. The driver appears dead; the paramedics “offer her up, prostrate / in white splints,” while the physician records the time. The narrator—who might be an ED nurse (perhaps Nigliazzo, an ED nurse herself)—describes what she sees. And as she does, we feel the terrible burden of her witnessing: the victim’s eyes brim “like black bowls that can’t be filled.” When the victim has been taken away, we’re left with almost nothing, only some coins and “buckled lines / in the shape of a woman.” It’s a short, spare piece that conjures up far more complicated matters, like where the dead reside, and how the living might go on.

The narrator of “Connection,” the poem by Camille Norvaisas that’s featured in January’s Art of Nursing, has undergone a double mastectomy. She is shockingly direct in her stated desire. “I want to feel the same / as my nipples, so cold, / in some jar in a sterile lab,” she tells us. She’s trying to comprehend a literal disconnection: once her breasts were part of her; now, “referred to as tissue,” they lie on a stainless steel table somewhere awaiting dispassionate study. The poem hums with sensation, real and imagined. Somehow it manages to be both fierce and stoic in its lament.

Have a look at these poems, sit with them a while; poems tend to reveal more upon rereading. (Art of Nursing poems are always free online—just click through to the PDF files.) And if you’re interested in submitting your own work to Art of Nursing—we consider visual art, short-short fiction (750 words max), and poetry—feel free to send me an email (sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com) for more information.

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Posted in art and nursing, healing/holistic, nurses, nursing perspective, patient perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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Questions of Priority, Written in Vernix and Blood: Two Poems in ‘Art of Nursing’

October 1, 2010

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Handleaf by The Welsh Poppy / Rachel Davies, via Flickr

Jenna Kay Rindo’s poem “An Ode to My Certified Nurse Midwife” (Art of Nursing, August) brims with the narrator’s gratitude for the clinician who has seen her through a “gloomy complicated gestation” with great skill and compassion. (Art of Nursing poems are always free online—just click through to the PDF files.)

This is no sentimental paean, though. This ode is a gritty read, full of vernix and “unrehearsed pain,” euphoria and shame. The child, we learn, was “conceived completely out of wedlock, / in a rush of holy illicit love.” The narrator at first only wants to know how long she can hide the pregnancy. It’s the nurse midwife whose “jubilant congratulations” never seem to waver, whose “size seven hands covered in  / sterile latex” draw the infant’s wide shoulders into the world, and give the young mother courage. It’s an ode, perhaps, to something we strive for but rarely attain: a nonjudgmental attitude.

“It is lucky to live outside the target groups,” begins the narrator of Erika Dreifus’s poem “The Autumn of H1N1” (Art of Nursing, October). She is referring to those considered most at risk for the flu and thus at the top of the list for immunization.

But when she finds herself hemorrhaging and frightened, waiting to be seen by a gynecologist who minimizes her distress, she reveals far more complicated feelings about “the prioritized.” It’s an unusually frank poem about what it’s like to find out that, for the moment anyway, one’s blood “counts less.”

We invite you to have a look at these poems, sit with them, and if you’re so inclined, leave a comment and tell us what they evoke for you.

And if you’re in the Portland, Oregon, area this month, stop by the Anka Gallery for a look at nurse blogger and artist Julianna Paradisi‘s new show, From Cradle to Grave: The Color White. Paradisi’s Love You to Death appeared on  our cover (October 2009) and new work is forthcoming in Art of Nursing.

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Posted in art and nursing, H1N1 virus (swine flu), patient perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

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Fighting HIV–AIDS with Public Health Billboards: September ‘Art of Nursing’

August 30, 2010

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Public Health Billboard, Guinea-Bissau (detail)

On a recent trip to the capital of Guinea­-Bissau, Dawn Starin noticed numerous public health billboards urging people to get tested for HIV or to practice safer sex by wearing condoms. One of the six poorest countries in the world, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, Guinea-Bissau faces an ongoing epidemic of HIV and AIDS. Prevalence is especially high in urban areas and among pregnant women and sex workers. Starin, a writer and a research associate in the department of anthropology at University College London, UK, was struck by the bright colors and larger-than-life figures in the billboards, and photographed several, including the one featured in the September Art of Nursing.

Are the billboards effective?  Starin writes, “Although the billboards are fabulous to look at, many health professionals I spoke with thought they exemplified time and money wasted, in part because of the high nationwide illiteracy rate.” One health worker emphasized the need for more culture-specific studies on sexual practices and tradition, so that appropriate education programs could be developed.

Starin has also photographed public art by Thongleum Damviengkum, a mixed-media artist whose work appeared in the April Art of Nursing. Damviengkum’s often witty pieces, intended to raise public awareness about HIV and AIDS and address the stigma associated with having the disease, are on display at a restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand. “Humor is important if you want people to listen,” he told Starin.

As always, Art of Nursing is free online (you’ll need to click through to the PDF files). We invite you to have a look and tell us what you think in the comments.

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Posted in art and nursing, HIV/AIDS, international nursing, public health nursing | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments »

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On Difficult Truths, Anger, and Compassion: Recent Poems in ‘Art of Nursing’

July 30, 2010

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Loafer Mod by pdstahl / Patrick Stahl, via Flickr

“Why couldn’t you leave cleanly?” asks the narrator of Ann Sihler’s poem, “Leavings,” featured in the June Art of Nursing. The poem, written in response to a suicide, speaks to the emotions of those left behind. Its central image, a pair of “oxblood loafers lying there / for all to see,” is somehow both mundane and horrifying. It’s a stark poem, suffused with the narrator’s anger; yet its lack of pretension also affords us  relief.

The married man with “schoolboy cheeks” in Nancey Kinlin’s poem, “Practicing at Post Office Square,” has just heard what no one wants to hear: “the result / is positive.” The poem, featured in July’s Art of Nursing, gives us the disclosure—from the nurse’s point of view. It’s a poem about mistakes and compassion, about what it feels like to be the one delivering bad news. Kinlin’s spare, clear writing doesn’t flinch from its difficult subject.

Both poems are free online (you’ll need to click through to the PDF files). We invite you to have a look, sit with them, and tell us what they evoke for you in the comments.

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Posted in art and nursing, HIV/AIDS, nursing perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Do You Have to Like People To Be a Good Nurse?

June 10, 2010

When I began nursing school I was confident that I’d enjoy being a nurse because I already liked being a waitress. I imagine that you’re already groaning, but hear me out. I had traits that served me well when I put food and drinks on the table: I was smart and organized, I learned quickly, I was usually able to rescue disastrous situations, and I liked people and wanted to make them happy.

That last characteristic is a secret that most of us nurses keep to ourselves as we emphasize the more cerebral nursing traits—the critical thinking, the autonomy, the professional skills.

That’s the start of an essay called “Nurse, Where’s My Lunch?” by the accomplished nurse and writer Christine Contillo in the June issue of AJN. It’s about some of the human pleasures of being a nurse, the deep human encounters you remember many years later. Is there a temperament best suited for nursing? And how do you define competence? Is it all just a matter of mastering “cerebral” technical skills? Or is there more?



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Posted in healing/holistic, nursing perspective, professional identity, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

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Fetal Pigs and Popcorn: ‘Lessons’ in May’s ‘Art of Nursing’

May 14, 2010

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Popcorn by twicepix / Martin Abegglen, via Flickr

To be frank, the opening scenario in Bernadette Geyer’s poem “Lessons,” featured in this month’s Art of Nursing department, made me uneasy when I first read it—and yet I was intrigued. In the poem, “Mom” has fallen asleep over a medical textbook, and her three daughters “watch as Dad / tosses popcorn, aimed for her slack mouth.” What’s going on here? The father’s action seems mocking, almost cruel.

But as good poems will, “Lessons” reveals more with each reading. The mother’s textbook is full of lurid photographs, including those of “a dissected fetal pig.” The young daughters find their own changing bodies “so embarrassing.” The father’s popcorn tossing makes his daughters giggle, and those garish photos of death recede just a little. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.  Read the poem—it’s free online (please click through to the PDF version)—and sit with it for a bit, see what you think. Then tell us in the comments!

Bernadette Geyer, a writer and freelance editor living in the Washington, DC, area,  received a 2010 Strauss Fellowship from the Arts Council of Fairfax County, Virginia.  Links to several of her poems can be found on her Web site.  She also blogs here about writing, motherhood, and life in “the exiles of suburbia.”

If you’re a poet or a visual artist, we hope you’ll consider submitting your work to us for consideration. Read this blog post for details. Guidelines can be found here. If you still have questions, feel free to write to the Art of Nursing coordinator (me) at sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com.

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Posted in art and nursing, children's health, writing and nursing | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

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The Manifold Talents of Nurses Who Are Artists

May 5, 2010

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Ferris wheel through the sunroof in the rain, by aturkus / Alan Turkus, via Flickr

As the coordinator of AJN’s Art of Nursing department, I’m intrigued by intersections between the two fields: Art and Nursing. About a year ago I profiled several multitalented nurses (The Triple Talents of Some Nurse Bloggers), including Julianna Paradisi, an RN, artist, and writer who blogs about “where science, humanity, and art converge” at JParadisi RN’s Blog. (Her painting Love You to Death appeared on our October 2009 cover.) In March Paradisi launched a second blog, Die Krankenschwester, which emphasizes images. One series depicts rituals followed “From Cradle to Grave”; another considers the iconography of call lights. Paradisi’s work is beautiful and thought-provoking; stop by and have a look.

Recently I happened upon Nurse–Artists International, Inc. Started in 2009 by Kathy Iwanowski, an artist and former oncology and hospice nurse, the organization has an ambitious vision that includes “promoting the arts, humanities, and the therapeutic benefits of creativity in all aspects of life and living,” “creating and collaborating on projects related to arts and health with corporate, educational, healthcare, and other community partners” and “assessing the impact of the arts on health and healthcare costs.” Among its programs are the International Association of Nurse Artists, with membership open to nurses working in any artistic medium; Our Space to Create, a collaborative program for developing arts projects that meet community needs; and the Arts and Health Co-Lab, open to anyone interested in the connection between the arts and health. Iwanowski’s personal Web site offers samples of her found-object sculpture and visual art.

Art by Nurses states that its aim is to “bring nurses together as a community using art as a powerful self-care resource.” Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, it offers members an online venue for showing and selling art. A percentage of works sold goes into an Art Fund for Nurses, to which “any registered nurse can apply for funds to use art as a strategy to maintain balance and meaning in their lives as healers.” Worth a visit simply for its Art Galleries, which include striking photographs and artwork by more than 20 nurse-artists, including founder Lynda MacLeod, Shona Lalonde, and Pasquale Fiore, as well as Catherine Fraser, whose watercolor “Herb Store” was featured on AJN’s August 2007 cover.

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Posted in art and nursing, media depictions of nursing, nursing perspective, writing and nursing | Tagged , | 6 Comments »

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