BLOG 24…August 2013
I’m always on the lookout for art and artists popping up in
unusual places and my ears perked up recently when I heard about Ronna Bloom,
poet –in- residence at a large downtown Toronto
hospital. Seems a nice synchronicity to
be celebrating two years of blogging by reminiscing about the sessions we had
with writers, artists and dancers at TGH in the 80’s and 90’s, glad that the
notion of arts having a place in treatment settings is alive and well.
Poetry is one of the offerings of the Employee Emotional
Wellness Program that “support the wellness of your mind, body and spirit.” at Toronto ’s
Mount Sinai Hospital
As well as the conventional writer-in-residence format of
receiving individual work for coaching and offering writing workshops for
groups (some titles include Addressing
Compassion Fatigue in Note Form and Have
You Seen the Patient?) Ronna tailors
her program to the setting. She has a monthly poetry booth in the basement
staff lunchroom.where individuals sit with her, tell her what’s on their
mind and she crafts a quick poem for them…”often either they start to cry or I
do,” she says. In a high stress atmosphere like a hospital “it’s kind of
therapeutic to stop, write and reflect, makes them better at their jobs when
they go back” she adds. Lindsay
Drysdale, program coordinator echoes this feeling, “Personal well-being can play
a major role in how you’re working.”
One Friday morning last spring, several hundred people
filled the lecture hall on the 18th floor for Psychiatry Grand
Rounds - not for the usual lecture on a new psychotropic or insight into depression,
but POETRY. Much to my surprise, near
the end of the session, after describing her work, Ronna asked if anyone in
the audience wanted to read their poem aloud for her comments. A bunch of people
volunteered, doctors, nurses, technical staff, all seemed willing and comfortable
sharing their creative work. She had set the stage for comfort with the theme of
the session Who will care for me?
She also showed that poets and poems can be funny or sad,
that poetry is enlivened by the broad range of experiences and feelings which
are often accentuated in hospital settings for patients, their friends and
family as well as for staff members.
So, a shout out to Mount Sinai ’s
Healthy Workplace Initiative, putting their money (along with some from the
Ontario Arts Council) where their mouth is with poetry.
