Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Spring 2011

  • Sitting here

    Shalamar Sibley Minnesota, Minneapolis,  USA   Poet’s statement: This poem was written after a day in the clinic. I will let it speak for itself, except to note that the opening quote is from a poem written by a mentor I had at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference who has passed on. The poem becomes a…

  • Seasons – Random

    Donna Pucciani Wheaton, Illinois, USA Poet’s statement: As I grow older, I see myself and my friends and family beset with various illnesses and approaching the end zone. My writing reflects this consideration. The poem “Seasons” looks at life and death in the context of nature. Most of us never really know when it is…

  • Advance Directives

    Daniel Becker Virginia, Charlottesville, United States   Poet’s statement: My poems are more narrative than lyrical, more humorous than somber, more fictional than biographic. Advance directives And should I ever appear in shorts that need suspenders because my hips and butt have slid under the glacier of old age, you are directed to suspend all…

  • What Matters

    Anne Clemente Charlottesville, Virginia, United States   Poet’s statement: When I worked in the Palliative Care Unit, a friend of mine died leaving her child behind. At that time, I had been working on the second half of this poem. Her young death made me deeply wonder how one prepares and grieves for oneself and…

  • In my ending …

    Sister Eileen Haugh Rochester, Minnesota, USA   Poet’s statement: This poem, like so many others I have written, was born of a need to express how I was feeling about a certain happening or person. Here I am contemplating the cancer that is slowly eating away at my life and what it will mean in terms…

  • Four-leaf clover

    Upreet Dhaliwal Delhi, India   Poet’s statement: You may have “doctored” for a million years, and you may have learned to hide your pain at hurts you couldn’t heal, but nothing quite prepares you for the loss of a beloved child.   Four-leaf clover When you arrived You brought sunshine and clouds; Optimism and despair;…