Many Things To Tell You
Tom Heinzen
ISBN 1885778147

An Introduction to Natural Poetry

Spoken words are the water that people living in nursing homes have used to shape, polish and wear away at  the rock of each others’  complex personalities for more than eighty, ninety or even one hundred  years.   Speech is often the only way to initiate action in a nursing home,  and even that form of action may be limited by stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, or some other unwelcome dysfunction that makes their words drip or leak to an unintended purpose.  Consequently people living in nursing homes have grown accustomed to making their words matter.  For some, including those whose words you will read in this book, every breath represents significant physical effort; speech is not to be wasted.  Like water, many of us use words carelessly and with little appreciation for their power to shape mountains, feed pastures, and grow tomatoes.  Yet words are how most of us negotiate the important details of our lives.  This is especially true of older people living in nursing homes who have become skilled at the use of words  after eight or nine decades of daily practice.  

            The residents' own words, when read back to them or presented to them in a picture frame, are received with surprise and satisfaction.  Even when memory function has not permitted recognition of their own words, these natural poets frequently respond with vigorous approval, grateful that someone else finally sees the world just the way they see it.  Sometimes residents will even disagree with their own words, and offer editorial comment, dispassionate critique, and clarifying elaboration.  We who are more self-conscious of our reputations would find it very difficult to offer such candid self-criticism. 

            The content of this book represents the many faceted experience of living in a nursing home, and overturns most of the negative stereotypes I once held regarding nursing home residents.  Yes, there is dementia and depression and drooling and many sided desperation.  But circulating amidst those troubles is a resilient and highly creative life force, even when expressed in the pursuit of a dignified death.  Previous to this book, there has been almost no record of what life is like in a nursing home from the residents' perspective.  Indeed, even in my own mind it is unclear whether these accounts are best described as poetry, oral history, or psychotherapy.  So even though the content of this book lacks the controls necessary for a more trustworthy and generalizable research study, it does offer an observational starting point for understanding the nursing home experience.

            Most of the poems collected in this book are the result of three years of psychotherapy practiced in two nursing homes in Queens, New York. Many of the contributors have been my patients (although much of my work  encourages them to be anything but “patient”).  Other contributions  are from pleasant acquaintances I made while visiting.  All have become good friends.  Each contributor, and in some cases a responsible family member as well, has given permission for their words to be published.   I have grouped their poems and reflections into different content categories based  on the major theme expressed in each account.  Consequently, we have before us an organized collection of what people living in nursing homes are thinking about. 

            The act of publishing this book is intended to be therapeutic for the contributors and their families -- a source of pride, a recognition of psychological worth, and a permanent record of lives well lived.  But the publishing of this book aims at a larger  social purpose.  It demonstrates that people living in nursing homes do not deserve to be stereotyped, either positively or negatively.  People living in nursing homes are neither “old and wise” nor “completely ga-ga.”  The people represented in this book deserve praise because they display individuality and variety despite living in a fiercely institutional environment.  They  demonstrate creativity in the midst of suffering, use humor as a defense against everyday frustration, and search for meaning while living in wrenching  circumstances.   But these same courageous people also display selfishness, short temper, unreasonableness, life-long habits of manipulation and just plain bad manners.  Much of the unappealing behavior within a nursing home is a simple, poorly expressed cry to be treated as an individual.  It may sound like a chant, a shriek or nagging but the words within the words are often very simple to translate: Pay attention to me!

            Early on in my experience in nursing homes, as I was developing this particular Creative Therapy, a small collection of poems instructed me in a skill I had fancied I was good at:  Learning to Listen.  Then I offer a group of poems whose theme is intended to startle you, as it startled me when I finally was able to give it a name: Beauty.  This section is followed by remarkably candid discussions of Death and Dying, a topic with distinct ethical and political overtones regarding the desire and the right to die.  The consideration of death and dying  leads many residents to reconsider their feelings and ideas about God and Religion.  Residents also expressed Personal Philosophies, often inadvertently, as they attempted to describe the way their lives have worked.   A curious topic developed over time, although I did not notice it very quickly: Small Pleasures describes what and how these residents continue to enjoy their lives.   Why should I have been surprised that they enjoyed talking about pleasure?  A significant number of poems reveal a century’s worth of Social History followed by poems which represent the emotional seeds that grew into the movement we call Feminism.  A significant  number of poems also focus on the here and now of Nursing Home Life.   Poems about Anger and Depression probably are not surprising to most observers of nursing home life, but the clarity with which these experiences is conveyed is painfully vivid.  Some of the most beautiful and anguished memories expressed by these residents focus on Marriage and Families.  A more unexpected theme was the expression of Curiosity, followed by some general reflections about Aging.   Many of these poems bubble with a quiet but compelling Humor --  both intended and accidental.  Humor doesn’t have its own section so you’ll simply have to “get it” whenever it floats by.  There are other ways to organize this collection, but this seemed to best serve the purpose of understanding the experience of nursing home life.      

            Not surprisingly, several of the "authors" represented in this book have died.  You will get to know some of the individuals represented in this book very well, as they slowly reveal themselves to you in different sections.  Others (or their families) hid behind the author known as “Anonymous.”  Touching these lives is akin to watching the last five minutes of a gripping movie: I can only surmise what the plot must have been to produce the endings that they share with me.  It is a particular pleasure for me to offer you, the reader, these words as a potential influence in the unfolding plot of your own life.