When you can't find the sunshine, be the sunshine...

The title of this post was taken from a bulletin board at the facility we visited.
It struck a chord with me and why we were there..

Hello Readers,

Continuing on my new path of literacy, I wanted to tell you about a program that I'm a part of, the Alzheimer's Poetry Project.

Founded by Gary Glazner, the Alzheimer's Poetry Project aims to improve the quality of life of those living with Alzheimer's disease and Dementia, by facilitating creative expression, particularly through poetry. By removing the boundaries surrounding those with Alzheimer's and Dementia, by listening to them and giving them an outlet for their voice, it is a powerful way to show that all members of the community matter. This program is inter generational as well; it involves high school students learning about poetry, Alzheimer's and Dementia, and teaching them how to craft and facilitate a facility visit. Yes, that's right, we're taking this front row and center to the patients, staff, and families, in local facilities that cater to Alzheimer's and Dementia patients.

So how did I end up involved with this program? Easy, I submitted an application to Vogue Robinson, current Poet Laureate of Clark County Nevada, and Jennifer, Vogue's co-coordinator on this project. I laid out my experiences, both personal and professional, and a few weeks later met up with Vogue, Jennifer, and another participant named Andrew. After reading some introductory information we laid out what our expectations were, what our potential hold ups were, and moved forward scheduling the first training with Mr. Glazner. (Additionally, my spell check keeps wanting to make his name Mr. Gladness, which I find fitting and amusing.)

The first training was at the beginning of January. After reading some interesting material, particularly this article about the power of play with dementia patients, it was time to learn from the master. We also added a fifth person, Charlene, making our initial group number five. Five is a very good number to start with by the way, it lends the group to a very easy combination of personalities, and you can always tag team with a different partner during the facility visits. Over the course of a few hours we went over ice breakers, open ended questions, guiding a group through writing a poem collectively, and facilitating discussions around poetry. We also learned about call and response recitation, the importance of projection, and what a typical visit looks like, along with what an ideal seating chart looks like, a circle. As the training adjourned we were instructed to have a facility prior to our next training.

The Adult Daycare Center of Henderson was kind enough to host us on our first time out. We were met by a group of 15! 13 patients, two staff members, and one observer. They were seated in rows, and now all the circle recommendations from the training make sense. While the group was just the right size, the lack of a circle made it a tight squeeze when interacting with the patients on a personal level. After introducing ourselves, we began with the poetry. The poems we selected had a nature theme, and themes are a good thing to have. Andrew did Alfred, Lord Tennyson's The Eagle (which no one knew was about an eagle until he told us the title), and was followed by Jennifer reciting Christina Rossetti's poem, Hurt No Living Thing.

Discussing poetry with seniors, or with people who don't voraciously consume poetry is a fun experience. The conversation flowed as freely as possible and spiraled through snakes, eagles, why bugs are wonderful (minus cockroaches), and finally settled enough for us to bring out the props. Yes, props! We had feathers, fake birds and butterflies, artificial flowers, plastic grapes, and even a bright green feather boa. Many of the participants became brighter and sillier upon being given a simple feather. The discussion we had with them about the props was funny, enlightening, and insightful. Listening to the patients it was clear that they probably hadn't been asked any creative or open questions for a long time. While it took a little prompting for a few people to answer, the answers themselves could be this groups first poem!

(holding plastic grapes)

Grapes make wine!

(holding a feather)

Hoot hoot, the sounds owls make.

(holding a butterfly)

Butterflies remind me of butterflies.

(speaking of butterflies)

They live a long time.

(when asked what type of bird she might be holding)

It might be a canary.

(not holding a provided prop, but used her cane as a prop)

Cane, don’t break it. Reminds me that I’ve got some issues.

(one gentleman hid a blue bird prop in his pocket)

Hidden bird, it’s cold. Blue reminds me of being in Cuba.

(a couple shared the green boa)

Makes us think of cardinals, beautiful colors, anything that I like.

(holding a seashell)

Going to the beach, picking up shells.

(holding a small bird)

Thinking of Wilcox, Az. Wings Over Wilcox,
you could hear the cranes before you saw them land, people came from
all over to watch them.

(holding a seashell)

Shell reminds me of the beach, I have a lot of shells that I picked up from the beach.

(holding a shell)

Sally sells seashells by the seashore!

(holding a shell)

Ditching school to drive to California on the weekends.

Next up were two more poems! And a ten pound tree! Charlene was doing the classic Trees, a  poem by Joyce Kilmer, and brought a small tree, (again, a circle would have made showing that thing off so much easier!). As she was reciting, even before the call and response, a few participants were reciting this poem with her, so it was exciting to see those moments of memory come back, even if people thought they were in a classroom again. I was the last to do a poem, and decided to go with something I was familiar with, and did Emily Dickinson's “Hope” is the thing with feathers. When discussing what people thought the poem was about, most thought birds, and revealing that it was about hope, you could see wheels turning inside their heads. Also, after sharing a sweet anecdote about my bird tattoo I tried asking them what they thought about birds, and we had a hilarious conversation about hummingbird residue, to put it politely.

The last portion of the visit was the creation of the group poem. Hands down this was the best part of the morning. Vogue was the scribe and Jennifer went down the rows asking for a word or phrase that the day had made them think of. Some truly offered up only a word, some a paragraph, and only two or three participants declined to offer anything, and that was beautiful too.

Here's the group piece they wrote that day.

Hope.
Snake.
I respect the trees.
Trees help birds with nests.
Birds sing.
I think that I should never see a poem as lovely as a tree.
Igualito de Cuba parajitos azules cantan muy bonitos.
Love.
I had a little green tree, it grew higher than our house and the tree had birds and it was beautiful.
Birds have their own nests.
I love to hear the birds sing.
The woodpecker would peck the trees and wake us up.
Birds and trees are beautiful.

This program is built on many things, among them are consent and autonomy, along with poetry, play, and memory. The small act of letting someone decide to shake your hand, or speak if they want to seem inconsequential, but they aren't. These participants loved being able to share, or stay quiet, or play with a feather, or have someone listen and understand them in their own language, or remember something from their childhood that made them happy. And as much as this experience was about and for them, it was also a learning experience for us as well. Changing the agenda around kept this group's attention better. Realizing the importance of a circle and the powers of projection are notes we are going to take with us into the next group. Learning to memorize and recite poems, leading a discussion, our group is made of (mostly) soft spoken individuals, and this takes and stretches our comfort zones with beautiful results.

As we head into our second training, and further facility visits, I'm excited to see what our group becomes and what we are truly able to do.

Until next time,
XoXo

BrainyHeroine

Jennifer, Vogue, Ami Rebecca, Charlene, Andrew
January 20, 2018
After the first facility visit.