By Yvette Perry, Listener Poet
One of the challenges for me serving as a Listener Poet is navigating the tension between needing the poem I write to honor the lived experience of the person I listen to (the “Poemee”) and hoping that the poem can have a broader impact beyond that specific person. If any poem I write only does the former, then I feel I have been successful. If it only does the latter, then that is not ideal and feels inauthentic to my responsibility as a Listener Poet. Even more, this would feel predatory in a way because I’d be taking advantage of someone’s story for a larger purpose.
But if a poem can do both, then that is the best of each situation.
Recently one of my poems (and audio reading of the poem), “What You Will Call Me,” was featured on The Blood Project website. (A poem by another Listener Poet, Julia McDonald, M.D., was also recently featured on their website.)
The Blood Project aims “to promote exploration and deeper understanding of the role of blood in health, injury and disease, integrated with the patient’s experience in pursuit of enhanced individualized care.” The part “...integrated with the patient’s experience” was key in my decision to submit the poem for consideration. I have a background in medical education as a student-facing administrator. I know how easy it is for educators to slip into focusing on conditions and symptoms and discrete aspects of the human body (...like blood…), all the while relegating the human being to the background or, at worse, to invisibility.
My hope is that by featuring this poem in this environment, the woman/ warrior/ advocate who so graciously shared her pain and triumphs with me will have her voice even further amplified. I hope her voice through the poem reaches a medical student, a resident, a health care provider, a researcher, and causes a change in their perspective about people living with Sickle Cell Anemia.