Medicine
Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught at New York University, Indiana University, and the New School. The following poem was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review.
**
WRITING POEMS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS
Writing poems on antidepressants
is hard. You can appreciate the difficulty
by reading the previous two lines.
Metaphors are easy
to come by when you're aching
or pining or wounded in love,
which scientists have proven is a type of madness
and madness can be cured with a pill.
Not everyday
is Paris. Not everyday
does a bird come winging
out of a carpet to give you a free metaphor,
especially if there are oranges on the table
and you're on your meds.
Each day offers some little irony or a dream
or a blind albino woman
sitting next to you on the train
with eyelashes like white silk threads
attached like broom-straw to her one closed eye
as she taps her cane against the window
and you, the poet on antidepressants,
thinks: look at that, hmmm, interesting.
Did I buy dog food? Here's my stop.
- Nikki Moustaki
- Writing Awards
I've mentioned previously that Common Sense Family Doctor started as the result of a science writing workshop taught by David Taylor at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland in the summer of 2009. Earlier in the same year, I took a workshop...
- Guest Blog: Cure
Veneta Masson is a registered nurse and poet living in Washington, DC. She has written three books of essays and poems, drawing on her experiences over twenty years as a family nurse practitioner and director of an inner-city clinic. Information about...
- Guest Blog: Having An Mri/waiting For Laundry
Jan Bottiglieri is a writer and editor, and a poetry student in the MFA program at Pacific University. She lives in Schaumberg, Illinois. The following piece was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review. ** HAVING AN MRI / WAITING FOR LAUNDRY I...
- Guest Blog: Anatomy Lesson
Nellie Hill's poems have appeared widely in literary journals in print and online. "Anatomy Lesson," first published in the Bellevue Literary Review, also appears in My Daily Walk (Pudding House, 2008). Nellie has an acupressure practice in Berkeley,...
- Guest Blog: I Want To Work In A Hospital
Cortney Davis is the author of four poetry collections, most recently "Leopold's Maneuvers," winner of the 2003 Prairie Schooner Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of two anthologies of poetry and prose by nurses, "Between the Heartbeats" and "Intensive...
Medicine
Guest Blog: Writing Poems on Antidepressants
Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught at New York University, Indiana University, and the New School. The following poem was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review.
**
WRITING POEMS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS
Writing poems on antidepressants
is hard. You can appreciate the difficulty
by reading the previous two lines.
Metaphors are easy
to come by when you're aching
or pining or wounded in love,
which scientists have proven is a type of madness
and madness can be cured with a pill.
Not everyday
is Paris. Not everyday
does a bird come winging
out of a carpet to give you a free metaphor,
especially if there are oranges on the table
and you're on your meds.
Each day offers some little irony or a dream
or a blind albino woman
sitting next to you on the train
with eyelashes like white silk threads
attached like broom-straw to her one closed eye
as she taps her cane against the window
and you, the poet on antidepressants,
thinks: look at that, hmmm, interesting.
Did I buy dog food? Here's my stop.
- Nikki Moustaki
- Writing Awards
I've mentioned previously that Common Sense Family Doctor started as the result of a science writing workshop taught by David Taylor at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland in the summer of 2009. Earlier in the same year, I took a workshop...
- Guest Blog: Cure
Veneta Masson is a registered nurse and poet living in Washington, DC. She has written three books of essays and poems, drawing on her experiences over twenty years as a family nurse practitioner and director of an inner-city clinic. Information about...
- Guest Blog: Having An Mri/waiting For Laundry
Jan Bottiglieri is a writer and editor, and a poetry student in the MFA program at Pacific University. She lives in Schaumberg, Illinois. The following piece was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review. ** HAVING AN MRI / WAITING FOR LAUNDRY I...
- Guest Blog: Anatomy Lesson
Nellie Hill's poems have appeared widely in literary journals in print and online. "Anatomy Lesson," first published in the Bellevue Literary Review, also appears in My Daily Walk (Pudding House, 2008). Nellie has an acupressure practice in Berkeley,...
- Guest Blog: I Want To Work In A Hospital
Cortney Davis is the author of four poetry collections, most recently "Leopold's Maneuvers," winner of the 2003 Prairie Schooner Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of two anthologies of poetry and prose by nurses, "Between the Heartbeats" and "Intensive...