Course Details

This honors seminar seeks to explore the interface between poetry and the healing arts and science. In an age when technology dominates our daily experience, the emotional parameters of illness are often overlooked. The human brain has not changed in the last ten thousand years in its need for expression surrounding fear and grief. We will discuss the limbic system and correlates of functional MRI in understanding patterns of brain activation.

Students will start by acquiring basic poetic craft and techniques to bring music and emotion into language. The history of poetry in medicine will be examined: its value in retrospective reflection, as a tool for teaching compassion to medical students, and as a vehicle for expression in mentally and physically afflicted patients. Renowned physician-poets will be discussed and each student will participate in vocalization of a selection of their poems. Examples of cross cultural traditions of poetry will be briefly reviewed. The format of the class will be in a round table, workshop tradition with constructive, collegial critique. Each student will be required to generate “in-class” writing as well as writing assignments, and to create 3 poems; the first about personal experience of illness or injury, the second about an illness suffered by a friend or loved one that has affected the student’s life, the third about environmental or societal illness. An editor, co-editor and graphic design artist will be chosen by the class to produce a 30 page book of poetry for publication by the University by the end of the seminar.

A group reading at the University Bookstore or Seattle venue, in which all students must participate, will be graded as the final examination.

My role will be as its facilitator and guide to provoke thought, to generate innovative poems, and to open minds and hearts to the possibilities of poetry for self exploration in the realm of illness, death and healing.