Most teaching hospitals feature a weekly Grand Rounds, during which any unusual and interesting medical cases from the week are presented. In many of them, the Grand Rounds includes a presentation of a provocative or interesting subject for contemplation. Often, outside surgeons and specialists are invited to present at Grand Rounds with the intent of exposing the resident doctors to ideas and experiments from outside the organization. Dartmouth”s Medical School is no different, offering a Grand Rounds each Friday morning as a teaching tool where visiting researchers and physicians are invited to share their work. Most often, the subject is clinical or medical. The Grand Rounds scheduled for Friday, October 20, is decidedly different.

The presenter at Grand Rounds on that morning will be the U.S. Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, and his presentation is titled Love and Death and Patrick Clary, founder and owner of The Palliative Care Service. The Grand Rounds announcement was made in the Dartmouth Vox, newspaper for the Dartmouth faculty and staff.

Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical specialty that focuses on giving comfort, not only physical but spiritual and emotional as well, to patients and family members facing life threatening illnesses. Some of Hall”s most well known works are the poems and books that deal with the illness and death of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon. Clary, in addition to being the founder of The Palliative Care Service, is a poet as well. His second book of poetry, Dying for Beginners, is due out later this month. As a physician and a poet, he has made it his mission in life to bring comfort to those dealing with all the myriad complications that come along with life threatening illnesses and death.

Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth, invited the two poets to present at Grand Rounds in an attempt to educate and illuminate, he said.

“Good poetry allows us to perceive things we might miss. It stops us and holds our attention and illuminates something real. Donald Hall and Patrick Clary allow us to see, and more importantly, feel how illness, caregiving, and grief both tear at and expand our ability to live deeply.”

Clary”s work has been lauded by many in both poetic circles and the halls of medicine. Says a hospice nurse of his poetry:

After years of reading Dr. Clary”s poems to patients and pedestrians, finally, I can carry his work to everyone whose path will be enriched by his rare, articulate and compassionate company.
— Virginia Lynn Fry

The fact that this need for processing through poetry is being recognized by established medical bodies is encouraging to me, one more bit of evidence that no, poetry is not dead. It is not even on life support. Poetry in today”s world is alive, well and thriving as people in all professions recognize the importance of ritual, poetry and meaning in our lives.

Listen to Clary read selections of his poems
Clary”s book is available through Lost Borders Press.

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