Utilizing Poetry as Non-Denominational Spiritual Care for Hospital Staff
Rebecca Doverspike, MDiv, Staff Chaplain, St. Elizabeth's Medical Center
“Hey, can you explain that poem you gave us yesterday?” an Attending calls after me as I walk down the hall of the ICU. The previous day, I’d handed out aromatherapy towelettes with poems, and some conversations spilled over into the next day. The poem referred to was Ross Gay’s “Ode to Buttoning My Shirt.” This poem doesn’t turn from suffering to focus only on joy, but instead, articulates an understanding of suffering and illumines joy that occurs in the midst of it. I explained how that made me think of the hospital and what we encounter. The Attending then opened up to me about his life, and we shared commentary on systemic pressures that make work/life balance challenging and the amplified burnout hospital staff feels.
Poetry has been part of my pastoral care since I began as an Interfaith Chaplain, as a form of sacred non-denominational spiritual care. I think of poetry and prayer as coming from a place of wordlessness, made as much of silence as words, where words give ring to the silence like a lighthouse that briefly illumines all the darkness surrounding. Poetry can be a powerful form of support in troubling and grief-stricken times in patient’s, families, staff, and our collective lives. Poems speak from the human experience in ways similar to Psalms, and can help someone feel less isolated and alone in what they’re going through. Poetry is also a form that can hold darkness/silence and words/sound as scattered light (I think of Gregory Orr’s Poetry as Survival, in which the structure of a poem can help hold traumatic experience). When we no longer know what to express, it can feel like arriving at a cliff, and then dipped over, just beyond that precipice, resides poetry and prayer.
I also utilize poetry in a quarterly Pharmacy staff support, and they bring tremendous wisdom, relating various lines to their own lives, to their work, and in ways that further connect them with one another. During a Nursing Practice Council session which I attend monthly, I facilitated a group around Rafael Campo’s “What I Would Give,” to spark engagement with what brought them to medicine, what barriers to healing they’ve encountered, and an invitation to return to humanness and being human as a form of care. Sometimes staff approach me about a poem they particularly liked that they keep near their bedside. Some have come to recognize me as the person who could call up a poem as a blessing needed on a particular day and will approach me to ask for one.
This paper and presentation seeks to illustrate a variety of ways poetry helps support staff and build interdisciplinary teamwork in the hospital setting, through research (such as Why We Need More Poetry in Palliative Care by Elizabeth A. Davies), resources (such as a Care Package for Caregivers and different examples of specific poems utilized in staff support and why/how), and anecdotes from this practice.
Poetry has been part of my pastoral care since I began as an Interfaith Chaplain, as a form of sacred non-denominational spiritual care. I think of poetry and prayer as coming from a place of wordlessness, made as much of silence as words, where words give ring to the silence like a lighthouse that briefly illumines all the darkness surrounding. Poetry can be a powerful form of support in troubling and grief-stricken times in patient’s, families, staff, and our collective lives. Poems speak from the human experience in ways similar to Psalms, and can help someone feel less isolated and alone in what they’re going through. Poetry is also a form that can hold darkness/silence and words/sound as scattered light (I think of Gregory Orr’s Poetry as Survival, in which the structure of a poem can help hold traumatic experience). When we no longer know what to express, it can feel like arriving at a cliff, and then dipped over, just beyond that precipice, resides poetry and prayer.
I also utilize poetry in a quarterly Pharmacy staff support, and they bring tremendous wisdom, relating various lines to their own lives, to their work, and in ways that further connect them with one another. During a Nursing Practice Council session which I attend monthly, I facilitated a group around Rafael Campo’s “What I Would Give,” to spark engagement with what brought them to medicine, what barriers to healing they’ve encountered, and an invitation to return to humanness and being human as a form of care. Sometimes staff approach me about a poem they particularly liked that they keep near their bedside. Some have come to recognize me as the person who could call up a poem as a blessing needed on a particular day and will approach me to ask for one.
This paper and presentation seeks to illustrate a variety of ways poetry helps support staff and build interdisciplinary teamwork in the hospital setting, through research (such as Why We Need More Poetry in Palliative Care by Elizabeth A. Davies), resources (such as a Care Package for Caregivers and different examples of specific poems utilized in staff support and why/how), and anecdotes from this practice.