Walter Scott Peterson, "[M]y ‘case’ to work up’: William Carlos Williams’s Paterson" (William Carlos Williams Review, Vol 41, No. 2, 2024),

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

New Books Network – Walter Scott Peterson, "[M]y ‘case’ to work up’: William Carlos Williams’s Paterson"

Date: October 11, 2025
Host: Jeffrey Hurdle Jimera
Guests: Dr. Walter Scott Peterson (Retired Ophthalmologist, Williams Scholar), Dr. Wamsi Konuru (Psychiatrist, UConn)
Key Article Discussed: “My Case to Work Up: William Carlos Williams’s Paterson” (William Carlos Williams Review, Vol 41, No. 2, 2024)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the intersection of medicine and poetry through the life and work of William Carlos Williams—a physician-poet whose epic poem Paterson exemplifies the convergence of clinical method and artistic expression. Host Jeffrey Hurdle Jimera is joined by prominent Williams scholar and retired ophthalmologist Dr. Walter Scott Peterson, and Dr. Wamsi Konuru, a psychiatrist with expertise in trauma, mindfulness, and the role of arts in health. Together, they discuss how poetic sensibility informs medical practice, fosters empathy, and broadens our approach to healing and human connection. Peterson’s article serves as a starting point for a rich, interdisciplinary dialogue on narrative, language, medicine, and the power of listening.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Poetry and Medicine: Bridges, Not Boundaries

(03:31–06:17)

• Medical humanities unites arts and sciences to illuminate the emotional and ethical dimensions of healthcare.
• Williams’s dual role as physician and poet is emblematic of the “bridge” between these fields.
  • Memorable quote:
    • “These are a few thoughts I have from not exactly the other side, but rather from that bridge between.” (Peterson, 05:17)
• Peterson’s work draws on the idea that both poetry and medicine require deep attention, care, and a commitment to wholeness.

2. Williams’s Relational Approach: Deep Listening

(06:17–12:53)

• Williams viewed his tasks as “trying hard” to understand other people—paralleling the physician’s diagnostic work and the poet’s pursuit of meaning.
  • Key quote:
    • “I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can’t understand it? But you’ve got to try hard.” (Williams, read by Konuru, 06:50)
• Williams’s writing and medical care both focus on careful observation, openness to disorder (“it’s the disorganization that creates the order.” —Peterson, 09:14), and cultivating “connectedness.”
• The “workup” in medicine is likened to the process of reading and making sense of a poem: both gather details, search for meaning, and require trust and patience.

3. The Role of Language & Narrative in Clinical Care

(12:53–18:04)

• Medical communication isn’t just about precision—it’s holistic, gathering multiple strands of a story, much as poetry operates on many levels.
• Peterson shares a teaching method: taking students to the art museum to interpret paintings—mirroring the slow, attentive reading of poetry (16:20).
  • “You definitely don’t get those stories by just taking a quick look…”
• Both arts and medicine train us to get beyond the superficial, recognize multiple meanings (ambiguity), and embrace complexity in understanding others.

4. Language as Connection—Personal Stories from Clinical Practice

(19:30–25:01)

• Jimera shares a poignant cancer care anecdote, highlighting how doctors’ attentiveness to language (switching between Portuguese, English, and Spanish) fosters comfort and human connection (19:30–20:53).
• Peterson and Konuru agree: effort to connect linguistically, even imperfectly, builds trust and enables patients to open up.
  • “It didn’t matter that my Spanish was terrible… They knew I was trying and it made all the difference.” (Peterson, 20:53)

5. Poetry as Practice: Listening, Writing, and Vulnerability

(23:15–33:56)

• Reading poetry daily can “train the ear” to listen deeply—the same skill critical for clinicians.
  • Konuru encourages students: “Let go of [the drive to immediately understand]; reading poetry liberates us… to reread the patient’s story.” (24:36)
• Creative exercises, like rewriting Williams’s “This is Just to Say,” make poetry approachable and encourage self-expression—even for reluctant or non-literary students (25:51–26:23).
• Poetic writing is positioned as a way for medical practitioners to connect to and compose themselves.
  • “I write poetry to hear sounds I’ve never heard and to see things I’ve never seen.” (Franklin Sifre, student anecdote, 27:13)
• Both medical and literary arts require “giving of oneself and one’s gifts to others.” (Peterson, 28:52)

6. The “Energies” of Medicine, Poetry, and the Multiple Truths

(28:20–33:56)

• “The two [science and art] are necessary to each other…”
• Both medicine and poetry demand the capacity to hold multiple, even contradictory truths—a disposition essential for human understanding and healing.
  • “Being able to hold more than one truth at the same time… allows one to get to a deeper truth.” (Peterson, 30:18)

7. Humanities in Science and Medical Curricula

(31:06–47:42)

• The panel discusses the practicalities and value of integrating poetry/art into scientific and medical education.
  • Many universities have relaxed distribution requirements, but students often forge interdisciplinary paths on their own.
• Examples include bringing poetry into physics lectures (e.g., Williams’s poems about Madame Curie), encouraging multidisciplinary projects, and using arts-based analytical tools in medicine and sciences (43:10–45:22).
• Peterson’s own story: his training in English literature (poetry analysis) aided his practical and business skills as a clinician.

8. Poetry’s Role in Healing & Humanization

(35:37–51:42)

• Would Williams have “prescribed” the arts? Peterson notes Williams believed in poetry’s life-giving force, referencing:
  • “People die for want of news and that the news are found in poems and people die for want of what is found there.” (36:44)
• The arts are essential in rendering struggles less abnormal and more human, opening windows into other experiences (Konuru quoting Kay Redfield Jamison, 39:05).
• Arts education fosters deep listening and open-ended inquiry—core clinical skills.
  • Reflection on Williams’s “so much depends”—a model for patient-centered listening and withholding assumptions (Konuru, 50:38).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “These are a few thoughts I have from not exactly the other side, but rather from that bridge between.”
  — Walter Scott Peterson, (05:17)
• “That’s it. It’s the disorganization that creates the order.”
  — Peterson on Williams’s narrative style, (09:14)
• “You learn how to hear that language by reading a poem.”
  — Peterson, (23:45)
• “Let go of [trying to understand everything at once]. ... Liberates us in the room with patients… willingness to sit with uncertainty.”
  — Konuru, (24:36)
• “Being able to hold more than one truth in one’s hand at the same time…”
  — Peterson, (30:18)
• “People die for want of news and that the news are found in poems…”
  — Peterson quoting Williams, (36:44)
• “The arts really help to assist, at least in the humanizing of individuals and our relationships…”
  — Konuru, (39:05)
• “So much depends… helped me to begin thinking about the words that patients were using… to really, like, deeply listen and not try to assume that I know how they’re using it.”
  — Konuru, (50:38)

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Key Timestamps & Segment Highlights

• 03:31 – Introduction to medical humanities and the episode’s central themes
• 05:17 – “The bridge between medicine and poetry”—Peterson’s formative insight
• 06:50 – “I wanted to write a poem that you would understand…”—relational poetry
• 09:14 – Disorganization as the generator of meaning
• 16:20 – Art museum as a site for teaching medical listening
• 19:30–20:53 – The healing power of linguistic and cultural attention in clinical encounters
• 23:45 – Poetic reading as training for clinical listening
• 24:36–25:01 – Liberation from immediate understanding—embracing uncertainty
• 27:13 – Students’ creative writing as self-discovery
• 28:52–31:06 – The “energy” of giving and the embrace of multiple truths
• 36:44 – Williams’s faith in the news within poems
• 39:05 – The humanities’ vital role in human understanding and mental health
• 43:10–45:22 – Incorporating arts and poetry in STEM curricula
• 50:38 – The open-endedness of Williams’s phrase “so much depends”

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Episode Tone

Reflective, warm, scholarly, and deeply empathetic. The conversation is collegial and inspiring, blending careful close reading with personal stories and practical teaching examples. The participants model humility, curiosity, and a shared commitment to bridging the “two cultures” of science and art in pursuit of care and deeper understanding.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a must-listen for medical professionals, educators, students, and poetry lovers interested in the medical humanities, narrative medicine, and the transformative role of art in both caregiver and patient experience.

Key takeaways:

• Medicine and poetry both demand close observation, openness to ambiguity, and a willingness to connect deeply with others.
• Poetry is not just a luxury or form of self-expression, but a powerful tool for training the sensibilities essential to healthcare: listening, patience, and empathy.
• Educational and clinical practice should “de-discipline” boundaries between arts and sciences, fostering holistic, humane, and creative professionals.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the New Books Network.

[B]

Greetings from Tranquility Farm in Middlebury, Connecticut. My name is Jeffrey Hurdle Jimera. I'm a professor in the Department of Humanities at the Universidad de Puerto Rico in Mayaguez. This podcast, Huevos Orizantes, discusses cultural studies, literature, thought, art with a decolonial axis anchored there in Mayagues. It is sponsored by the Humanities Department and in part by the Teagle and the Mellon Foundations. Today's episode concerns the poet and physician William Carlos Williams, whose mother, Raquel Elin Rose Oeb Williams, was born and raised in Mayaguez. Our conversation is part of our Stem to Steam initiative sponsored by the Tigo foundation that links medicine, science, technology, engineering to the sensibilities honed in the humanities, rethinking ways to blend and hone studies in literature, poetry, history, philosophy and the arts as more central dimensions of technical preparation. I am joined by Dr. Walter Scott Peterson, a retired ophthalmologist who is among the foremost William Carlos Williams scholars and the author of one of the first book length studies of William Carlos Williams epic poem Patterson. Titled An Approach to Patterson. Published in 1967, it's a groundbreaking book that explores William's poetic approach, drawing parallels between his medical practice and his poetic method. A true visionary text. We're Also joined by Wamsi Konuru, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine who is also a scholar whose diverse interests combine and link poetry, trauma, mindfulness, migration, and wellness. With a profound dedication to integrating the arts and the contemplative practices into medical education and patient care, Professor Connaroo explores how words and poetry can serve as a powerful tool for healing and self reflection. He highlights the role of empathy and cultural understanding in medicine. We are very fortunate to have such inspiring scholars whose interdisciplinary approaches enrich our academic community and foster holistic approaches to health and well being. Thank you guys so much for being with us today.

[A]

Thank you Jeff. It's my pleasure to be here.

[C]

Yeah, me as well, Jeff. Thank you so much for the invitation.

[B]

Today's episode highlights the profound importance of poetry to the medical humanities, highlighting how these disciplines enrich our understanding of patient care, foster empathy, and humanize the medical experience. Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field combining arts, literature, philosophy, and cultural approaches to the human condition. Considering each of these as insights into the emotional and ethical dimensions of healthcare, poetry can serve as a powerful tool for expressing the complex feelings and narratives that often go unspoken in clinical settings. Blending poetry and the science of healthcare reminds us that medicine is not just a science, but also an art, emphasizing the compassion, understanding, and the shared human experience at the heart of healing. Today we will use Scott's recent article titled My Case to work up William Carlos Williams Patterson, which appeared in the William Cullors Carlos Williams review in 2024 as a point of conversation. Before we jump into that, I wanted to give some context about the origin of this conversation. Last year in 2024, the Williams Carlos Williams Society held its conference on our campus at the Resinto Universitario de Mayaguez. And there I met Scott and we had some wonderful conversations about Mayaguez, about William Carl Williams, about his Spanish language, about his medical practice. It was really one of the most rich experiences in my 17 years on the faculty at the University de Puerto Rico. And I have to say that he and Wamsi are both very unique scholars who work in physical medical environments, but who also have a commitment to the humanities and to thinking about how health and wellness and context and culture and language interrelate and how we can think about poetry and language as complementary but also as constituent parts of bodily experiences. And to begin our conversation, I wanted to quote an email that Scott sent to me, and this was an extension of the conversation we had begun in Mayaguez about the links between medicine and poetry. And. And he concluded the email saying, quote, these are a few thoughts I have from not exactly the other side, but rather from that bridge between. And I love that. And in fact, I've. I've used it as a subtitle of a proposal. Scott's article in the William Carlos Williams Review, My Case to Work Up William Carlos Williams. Patterson argues that as a physician poet, Dr. Williams approaches his poetic material very much as he approaches his patients, and that the form of Patterson is reminiscent of the medical case narrative or the workup. Thank you very much for the work and for the generosity. And before I pass the mic to Wamsey for his initial reflections. As I read your work, it really makes me feel that William Carlos Williams's relationship to words is, like his relationship to patients, something that merits and receives the utmost attention and care. And the wholeness with which he delivers himself to that task creates part of the beauty and probably afforded quite a bit to the experience of his patients as well.

[A]

First question.

[C]

Thank you. Yeah. One of the pieces that always drew me was the. To psychology was always the intersection, I feel like, of story and science. I always thought of story as our. As our entry point to deeply understanding people. And I always thought of Williams as a deeply relational poet. And Scott, in your wonderful essay, My Case to Work up, as Jeff was mentioning, you quote some of his thoughts related to the everyday practices of medicine as saying, it is a trivial business unless you add the zest, whatever that is, to the picture. To treat a man as something to which surgery, drugs, and hoodoo applied was an indifferent matter. To treat him as a material for a work of art made him somehow come alive to me. Williams always struck me as someone that was offering us invitations to connect. And in designing some of his poems, as he did, he seemed to be asking us to slow down, to observe, to deeply engage, to feel, as opposed to simply reading. And you wrote, which I just love the trust he had, a trust in the poet in each of us, which was a cornerstone of William's work. In one of the first poems that I was introduced to, January Morning, which presents moments from his daily life. Nearing the conclusion, he writes, I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can't understand it? But you've got to try hard. So this deeply relational aspect seemed to be this beautiful thread in so much of his work. So the first question I was hoping to hear your thoughts on was maybe two parts. What elements of William's life and method would help to Contextualize our conversation for the listeners. And what would you hope that listeners take away from our conversation today?

[A]

Well, it's interesting that you quote that little poem from Williams, because that's the epigraph of my book is an important part. But if you think about what that means, it's about the, about the approach to try to deeply understand another person. That's what the trying hard is about. Now, some poetry, of course, is very difficult. And you really, I don't know, you have to do more than try hard. It's very difficult. William's poetry is generally very accessible, at least on the first level. There may be many subtleties below that top level, but it's relatively understandable. But I think. I think the more you think about what he's trying to do, the more, the more work you have to do. And you're rewarded for that work by the connectedness that you derive from that. And I think that that word connectedness is very important. Your question? I was just looking at a short story a couple of days ago. I was putting something away on my bookshelf and I started to read the short story. And it was a story about Williams visiting a patient in a house that was quite disorganized. And he described in great detail, lovingly, really, all these details about the rag on the floor or the boiling over pot on the stove and so forth. And. And then he says, that's it. It's the, it's the disorganization that creates the order. And I think that, that. That's a quote that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere because it's really an obscure place. But I think that says a lot about what he does. And his, his work as a doctor was to bring order and, and meaning to whatever he did. Now he had, he had two areas that he worked in, primarily. One, the world of medicine, where he needed to take a patient who he knew nothing about and discern from many details what. What was going on and how he could help that patient. And the same was true of his poetry. He needed to gather details. No idea, but in things he said a million times and then create some kind of a poem that had meaning outside of that. And in the autobiography, he has a famous passage where he says, I'm often asked the question, you must be like two. Two people with a full time job as a physician and a more than full time job as a poet or a writer, because he did more than just poetry. And he said, no, actually, it's all one job. And the job is work, and the job of writing is relaxation. But I think that's a very misleading comment because he's not talking about relaxation as if I were taking a guitar and sitting in the corner and kind of strumming myself to sleep. He's talking about relaxing the. The ego and relaxing the organizing mind, what we call secondary process thinking, and allowing the primary process thinking, which is more inductive and associative, to come forth in a. In a very engaging. In a way that engages oneself in a very deep sort of way. And then he. In the poetry, he does have to do the work, making some sense out of that to make a poem that not only you can understand, but he can understand. And I think the same is sort of true in medicine. The most important point for me is that Williams teaches us not only connectedness, but the connectedness of all things. And he connects his medicine and his art. We connect to his art, and we connect with each other, thinking a bit.

[B]

Across, kind of into medical practice and the role of language therein. I always kind of can think about how the pressure on doctors to be as specific and as precise as possible when they're making diagnoses and when they're communicating with patients. And I was wondering, do you think, to what degree, if at all, that this type of medical cognition or medical consciousness or medical state of communication in which Williams found himself as he was working, do you think that that was brought over into his poetic method?

[A]

Well, there's certainly medical jargon and lingo, but I don't think you're asking that. I think it's a misconception that physicians approach their work in a logical sort of way. I think that physicians approach a patient very holistically, gathering information of many different sorts, much of which may not be relevant to the immediate problem that's being treated, but that may be relevant later on. That includes the past, that it includes the present. Adaxine includes the future as well. And I think in terms of what poetry can tell, medicine is about seeking. What you said earlier about you have to write a poem that I can understand, that you've got to try hard. Well, you've got to try hard to understand what a patient is saying, because invariably the patient comes in with what we call a chief complaint, and that chief complaint gets top billing in the medical chart. But often it's kind of irrelevant. As you delve deeper, you find out that the real issues are something quite different. And I think when you read a poem the first time, you may not even Understand it. And then you read it a few more times, and it starts to come into view. Just like looking at a painting. You may see the landscape that's beautiful, but you don't get much meaning from that. But then as you start to study that painting for a longer period of time, it comes into view. And I think that poetry offers that kind of training in getting beyond the language into the meaning, into the deeper meaning. And Williams is always talking about the. How important medicine is to his writing and getting the American idiom and the normal, you know, the local American speech. I think that's very important, but I don't think that's what's really important. I think what's really important is that the meaning can be perceived deeper than the language. Now, in medical school, at one of the medical schools that I'm affiliated with, in the physical diagnosis course, which is the course where doctors are taught how to take a history, a full history, and to do a physical examination. This is before you do tests and other sorts of things. One of the medical humanities professor brings the students to the local art museum and he has a few select paintings that he shows them and asks them to look at that for 10 or 15 minutes and then to tell him the story that that painting discloses. So no words are spoken but it. And, and the stories can be quite, quite interesting and quite complicated. And you definitely don't get those stories by just taking a quick look at the painting and then seeing it by such and such an artist in, you know, in 2012, and then move on to the next one. And I think the same is true with poetry. I think as you. If you could study a little bit of poetry and it doesn't have to be complicated, poetry could be, you know, good poetry that has some substance, but it could be, you know, without much taxing. I think students can be taught to look beyond the words at the meaning, and then what they're going to learn is that there's not just one meaning. There are many meanings. There are many levels. And in, in literature, we call this ambiguity. You know, it's an old word from the New Criticism, New Criticism era, but it really is just multiple levels of meaning. And the same is true when you take a history. There are multiple levels of meaning that all play a role, some greater, some lesser. And I think any of the arts help us to get beyond the superficial into the more important. I guess that would be the summary of that.

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[B]

As we were talking earlier, just a bit about the workup, I wanted to share something from my own kind of health experiences. A few years ago, I had cancer and I had a wonderful experience with a doctor, Dr. Neves. And it was very interesting the way that he asked me questions that were really personal questions that were unrelated to what my interests are, what languages I speak, where I live. He knew that I lived in Puerto Rico. And one of the things that he was a man who's from Brazil. And I said that I grew up in Massachusetts, I grew up around a lot of Portuguese people. And, and I, I now live in Spanish and live my life in the Spanish language. And I played soccer for a number of years. And he would, when we had our weekly conversations, which there was involved with a lot of anxiety and a lot. It was, A lot of. It was difficult time, you know, for me, obviously. And, and he would start the conversations, our daily interactions in, in Portuguese, he would say. And then, then he would speak to me in English about the difficult parts of the, you know, the day, what the. What the interaction was. And then at the end, he would speak to me in Spanish. Gracias. And I looked forward to that. I looked forward to that because it put in kind of like a rhythm and kind of a cyclical aspect of his care. And it was very. And I would say that that was so important to me. You know, it was beyond the physical, of course, the physical care and everything, but that linguistic attention and those kind of non medical aspects.

[A]

Let me interrupt for one second. My experience is that patients universally appreciate that and it creates an incredibly strong bond between the doctor and the patient. We have in Waterbury a lot of Albanians and I knew two doctors. So looking up and looking down would be things we say. And I could tell them to look up and look down in Albanian and just like in Spanish, I could sing. You know, it didn't matter that my Spanish was terrible or that my pronunciation was wrong. They knew that I was trying and it made all the different people. And I think you're saying the same thing and then, and then they're comfortable telling me what they really want to tell me and make sure they.

[B]

An example maybe of a strategy you use with students or about clinical care that uses language in a similar way.

[C]

That's a great question. I think linguistically as we're talking about, I do think if one can engage with an individual in their first language, I think immediately you're going to have a different level of bond and connection. Even as Scott was saying, even if you're not fluent or the most extra, the effort I think is so bonding and so connecting. I remember when I was an intern, there was a clinician I was working with and she would come in and she had a guitar and she would play and her Spanish was, was average. But it was the willingness that you could see that the patients engaged in. They would say something and her, one of her phrases was un poco mas lento. Just, just a little slower, just a little slower. And she would find ways to connect that. And you could see people like, literally I do a lot of work associated with the body and kind of observing the body. How do people move? And you could see people's shoulders just drop another inch to half an inch when you'd engage in that language. I think also you're really getting a depth of story that is different. If you're able to engage with individuals in their primary language, you know that they're. The ease of the story coming out I think is going to be so much more related, like felt by them as well. And when they're feeling their story, I feel like you're really in a, a deeply rhythmic conversation. Like you're kind of feeling and connecting with one another in that moment.

[A]

Do you think that becomes a kind of foreign Language that you master a little bit, and it helps you maybe understand other. Other people's language, which may be a poem of their own. You know, not an artwork, but a poem trying to reveal their innermost thoughts and feelings. But that aspect of the language comes from poetry, perhaps. I agree.

[C]

100.

[A]

In other words, you learn. You learn. You learn how to hear that language by reading a poem.

[C]

Yes, I was. I don't know. It's in English. Yes, I was going to say close to sound like. I feel like I learn to listen more deeply as a function of my reading of poetry, because I'm listening to the word sort of unfolding in my own mind. Or if I'm really intrigued, I'll read it out loud and hear how my voice engages with the language and the pauses and the line breaks and things of that sort. So I feel like it trains my ear a lot more to listen deeply. So I encourage all of my students to try to read a poem a day just to get into the rhythm of just. Just reading without, in a way, taxing themselves with trying to understand what the meaning of it is. Like, what is the problem?

[A]

Right.

[C]

Let go of. Let go of that. Because I do think that also liberates us a little bit in the room with patients, that we may not always understand everything. The first time somebody is walking through their story and the willingness to sit with uncertainty, the willingness to go back, as you were saying, in a way, to like, reread the patient's story, I think comes from that sense of reading and rereading as well.

[B]

Yeah. And as a literary example of that, Wamsey, I don't know if you remember Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses, but the day that John Grady Cole's girlfriend breaks up with him in Zacateca Sidom Ekiboko, he says, I first saw the sadness in the slope of her shoulders. And also, too, in addition to reading poetry and to appreciating it into integrating it as a part of our practice. Would you guys imagine that writing poetry also would allow. Facilitate medical practice, medical practitioners practicing poetry and writing. It would. Would be, you know, part of a method to encourage patterns of communication that are better, perhaps more intentional and therefore connected and connectable.

[A]

I think that's a tough sell for an awful lot of students, but it can be done. I am not a literary teacher, except under one circumstance. During COVID I had a modern poetry course with my grandchildren. And the poem that was most successful was William Carlos Williams famous poem. I forget the title, but it's about the plum on the refrigerator.

[B]

This is just to say.

[A]

This is just to say. And it's very easy after they read this is just to say, for them to write another poem on their own. This is just to say. And then some of their experience. So that's, like, really easy. But it incorporates all of the features of poetry writing. So I think if you could do that, that kind of level, it would be very useful. But other. I know if I'd been asked to write a poem, I would have started thinking about sonnets and rhymes and metering. That's not what you're asking for at all. But I think that would be tough. I think if you can get them to read medical students, to read a poem a day, I mean, that would be extraordinary.

[B]

I have a student who. I didn't think of this, but it's really a great. I asked my students this in a medical humanities dynamic, and I had a student who was an engineer who said, I write poetry and sit in Spanish, but something to the effect of, I write poetry to hear sounds I've never heard and to see things that I've never seen. And just this touching, just wonderful thing. And that I didn't ask him to follow up to because I think sharing might be sort of difficult in an environment with 30 people. But I think I feel like that people can use that creativity not only to connect to others, but also to kind of compose themselves and to kind of channel and understand themselves in a way that's. I was really touched by what he wrote. And in fact, I wrote it down and I'd have it tacked up above my computer at home. And I told him about it. I thanked him. In fact, it's a. Franklin Sifre is his name. I think that the words that people use, like you said in a moment ago, have different meanings, and I think we bring meaning to them.

[C]

And.

[B]

And I'm sure that what he wrote and what he said, he had a meaning for himself. And I feel like I'd bring my own meaning to it because I feel inspired by that, that a student writes something like that. And I wanted to ask both of you guys. This is actually a quote from Scott, but I wanted to ask Wamsey, too, about a wonderful phrase that you use in the article, which is about the energies of medicine poetry. And I was wondering, Scott, if you could develop that if you talk a little bit about that, about how they're similar and different and what they do for human. The human condition.

[A]

I think the most important, similar energy of Reading all the art and all medicine and maybe all of science as well, is giving of oneself and one's gifts to others to improve whatever you can improve, whether it's their life in this situation or their health or. Or whatever. And I think. I think the energy of medicine is. Is primarily that energy. And so it's the same poetry. I do think the medicine, you said early on, medicine is kind of a bridge. It's really in between medicine and science. It's not a science. It's not just science, and it's not just art either. The two are necessary to each other, the two approaches. You really need to validate your ideas that arise from trying to formulate a diagnosis. Ultimately, you have to pin that down. On the other hand, you can't start with that. You really need to start with an open mind that can accept all sorts of things. And more importantly, I think you need to understand. And this is another way poetry can help, but very frequently in medicine and in the arts too, even in science, but less so, more than one thing is true at the same time. And being able to hold more than one truth in one's hand at the same time or in one's mind, even contradictory truths, is, I think allows one to get to a deeper truth, which is sometimes that there isn't any truth, that there. I mean, truth. If truth is defined as. As only one answer, often that's not the case.

[B]

I feel like when I think about, you know, interdisciplinarity and, and about your work and about your passion for Williams and about letters and about the medical practice and. And I. I feel like it's. I don't know, just a unnatural division that these things that the de. It's almost like a. I feel like we should advocate for de. Disciplinizing in general and bringing in arts into. Into a lot of these different affairs.

[A]

Well, I think that. I think that the arts can be of great use in science generally, and we could talk about that later if. If we have time. But it's not just in medicine. I think that can help in science too. But once you wanted to comment on.

[C]

Your other question about the energies I found myself noting, two words were coming up for me as I was thinking about the question you asked, which was lovely vulnerability and the visceral. And what do I mean by this vulnerability? I think about what really, as I was mentioning in the introduction, what really drew me to the study of psychology as opposed to other disciplines, because I studied English in college but decided I think psychology is the mood for me is this, this again, this sort of intersection of story and science. And I think really the idea of story for me though, or poetry or whatever medium, be it painting or so on, is always about vulnerability. You know, like for the individual, first of how can they interrupt or slow or ease the relationship with that self critical part of themselves so that they can kind of just let maybe unconscious thoughts flow so that they can have a bit of a relationship with the, the canvas or the page that isn't as. As that isn't as focused on revision yet. That's just allowing that and then revision can come thereafter. So vulnerability. So I think about that a lot in patient sessions, of course, because fundamentally what I'm often asking people to do is to try to slow things down and become over time a bit more vulnerable. To look at something that they might have not been aware of, feel something that they might not have in a way known, was there, so to speak, knowing in a more visceral way that like you were mentioning that beautiful quote from all the Pretty Horses. I think a lot about the visceral. And like, I'll often ask people, like, let's slow down for a second. Like, how is that showing up in your body? How is that feeling? And I try to bring that same invitation to myself when I'm reading a poem. Like, how is this showing up? How is this feeling in my body right now? So I'm not primarily or exclusively, I should say head oriented. Like, what does the poem mean? What does the meter, what is the verse where I feel like it's not just a intellectual exercise, that it's really an embodied experience with the. With the. With the material.

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[B]

Excellent. And by the way, the. The student.

[A]

Work knowledge, volume knowledge and once a.

[B]

Do you get one? And then a question afterwards. Want me to ask?

[C]

I have. Yeah, I'd love to ask. You know, maybe piggybacking on this by way of intro towards the question. There's a poem called what can a Poem do? And I think different writers have certainly explored this idea. This is by Darius Daughtry. And the author notes a difficult truth. He says no matter how much you enjoy it, a poem can't save your life. But then he goes on to say but a poem can love hold you and scold you at the same time. It can make you float, introduce you to yourself. And then he says I wonder where we'd be if the masses knew just what a poem could do. And there are several lines of research looking at the inclusion of poetry and for mental health benefits, using poetry as a tool within trauma work to assist with improved social interactions, overall functioning and so on. So the question I think towards all of this is for Scott and do you think Williams would have like encouraged or even I kind of put in quotes like prescribed in any way engagement with the arts as as part of his treatment with Fox?

[A]

I'll get to that in a second. One of one of the more famous quotes in Williams is I can't quote it but it's to the effect that people die for want of news and that the news are found in Poland and there's a pun on news across that all the news is found in poems and people die for what it. For want of what is found there. So that was William's very explicit statement on that question. I do not think that he would prescribe the arts. He was of a much more paternalistic doctrinals best era. I think if he were living today he would understand these concepts intuitively and probably and might very well. But then again on the other hand he has this, you know, equally famous quote that we keep coming back to about. I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. And a lot of his poems are written very simply and yes, they're images poems and they're supposed to be simple but I think more than that they're. They're. He liked. He liked people to know about him. You know, he, he pretended otherwise, but I mean who wouldn't? I mean he's a famous poet. He really would like to be known as, as, oh my doctor, Dr. Williams is a very famous poet. But you know, he can't say hi, I'm Dr. Williams, the famous poet. You know, you can't do that. So I, I think, I think he did like to have his, some of his works acknowledged in terms of prescribing therapeutically. I think that might be beyond what medicine was doing in those days.

[C]

It makes sense, yeah.

[A]

But I don't really know. I've never, never given great thought to that and I've never read anything one way or the other when I've studied Williams.

[C]

There's a quote that I find myself thinking a lot by a psychologist. Her name is K. Redfield Jameson. She actually a brilliant psychologist, literally wrote one of the seminal textbooks on bipolar disorder. She herself has been quite vulnerable about her own experience with bipolar disorder. Wrote a brilliant autobiographical work called An Unquiet Mind. She says humanities are vital because they help people to understand one another. And when people are quiet about their struggles, those struggles may seem abnormal and frightening to the rest of society. So I think that the arts really help to, to assist at least in, in the humanizing of individuals and our relationships because I think it gives a window into other people's when done, I think most, most effectively. I think it gives a very keen window into other people's experiences that, or at least that's how I tend to read. I jokingly I say I always read as a psychologist so I'm always listening for you know, is what window is this giving us into somebody's psyche? What window is this giving into how they feel in relationships and things? So tell me again this the specific of your question because I think I'm speaking a bit around it.

[B]

No, I think it's well what, the kind of what, what comes to mind is we have like I work with a lot of engineers and some people from in biology who teach the, in the pre med course that we have. Well you should be the pre med program. And it's interesting because like for me, even though when I'm teaching for example literature grads or literature criticism funds, I don't really have any, I don't have any reservations to say okay, we're going to draw a picture now and what's one of the activities that I like to do is to have Students draw a 1 inch by 1 inch picture of what we talked about today and I give them five or eight minutes at the end of class to do that and to sum up the class in one word and also to some of the fast in one sentence. But I think I feel like maybe in the hard sciences that they're the hard sciences that there might be some reluctance to that a bit. So it would be a waste of time of class period because in reality class periods are. Class time is shorter. Contact is very precious as you guys know. Do you have any reflections about that, about poetry as part.

[A]

Yeah, so I, I agree with what Walms he said. He and I were both I guess English majors. I didn't know that, but we were both English majors. Yet we have careers in, in science essentially. Although as I've said earlier, I think medicine is somewhere in between. But you know the universities have gotten rid of a lot of their old requirements for what used to be called distributional credits. They've reduced the number of courses you take each year and so the students are, are quite constrained. It was very difficult for me to do even when we, because we had five courses a year. It was very difficult to get all what I, everything I needed and wanted to get my comps done in, in English literature and to do all the pre med courses and to do the seven distributionals that we had. Although there was some overlap, that was a lot. Now with four courses it's more difficult and a lot of students now are majoring in two things. The good news is often the major is something like molecular biology and art history. They, they combine, they combine these two worlds which is, is fabulous. And I think you know, that's sort of the new distributions. It's, it's different but then again it reaches the same goal. Now you were asking about whether you ask about the sciences if you know.

[B]

For example in a university setting like that class and to bring in poetry to. As a, as a component, for example in a chemistry course or another say pre vet course. Would you be able to under kind of conceptualize a way to do that?

[A]

Well, I had a physics, a pre med physics class and there were, there were two options for pre meds. One was used three third level calculus which I didn't get that far. I did a regular year of calculus but not further and that would have been impossible. The other was a more general course. It used plenty of mathematics but not at the same level. And the professor was deep down a humanist. And while we didn't read poetry, he definitely in his lectures brought up references to subjects and topics in quotes that would otherwise be Considered something from the humanities. And so I think it would have to be very carefully done, but I think it. It could be done, and I think it would be worthwhile. I've been doing something that's really pretty weird, but I've been reading an astronomy textbook because I really am interested in astronomy. And it's. It's difficult. I just read a few pages every day or two, but I find it close to poetry. It's. It's. It's absolutely beautiful. And I think that the beauty. There's great beauty in science, you know, it's magnificent. And I think that that magnificence can be pointed out. And, you know, sometimes there will be a movie about physics or chemistry or especially something in biology. And I think. I think incorporating some of that is useful. And I think you could bring in bits of poetry and bits of art from time to time. William certainly brought in a lot of science in his poetry with. In particular with. With nuclear physics and Madame Curie and the.

[B]

The.

[A]

The residual that was left in the retort after she boiled everything off. And it was a radiant gist and so forth and so on. He goes on and on about that. So I think I. I think when. When, for example, I mean, I'm just free associating. But if I were giving a lecture on Madame Curie, not on mak. But on. On nuclear course, a class that then alluded to Madame Curie, I could. I could quote a little bit of. Of Williams there. And I think that it's. Because that's. That's experimental. That's exactly what they're doing in the lab. And I think that could. That could elevate their experience from a. From a required lab experiment to something that was in some way replicating one of the great moments of history recorded in song and poetry. So I think there'd be ways to do it, but it would take a lot of work. You know, it's not been done before. So I hope you figured that all out. I know you're working on it. It's a great cause.

[C]

I think we. Because there's science and this is chemistry. This is this. I remember a high school teacher saying, like, you know, it all comes down to philosophy at its core. Right? You know, so these are just maybe different approach angles in a way, so that the exposure, I think whether it's explicitly taught within a chemistry class out how to quote, unquote, read a poem, certainly I don't think that would jive with it. But the idea that wondering about perhaps, like, what was the poet's question in this, because I think a lot of great science starts like, what is the question I'm trying to ask, right? And so I think that the tools and the practice and also the idea of sitting with the unknown, you know, and what does, and then even the idea, perhaps we were often taught, like, what does the data indicate?

[A]

Right?

[C]

What does the data say? And I think that's where, within a poem perhaps, like maybe we treat that, so to speak, as the data. What is the data saying? What interpretations, what analysis? So I think assists us in just expanding our, our toolkit in a way of analysis.

[A]

I have a little story, if I have time to tell, about analysis. So I, after four years in the English department, I was very good at analyzing a poem. You give me a poem, I'm going to come up with a credible analysis of it. It might not be right, but it'll certainly be logically consistent and credible. And when I entered my practice as an ophthalmologist, you have to buy a lot of very expensive equipment. And I didn't have, you know, a dime to my name. And so I had to go to the bank. And so I figured out how much an exam would, would I would charge for an exam and how much my secretary would cost, which was free because it was my wife and the phone and so on and so forth. And I, I drew it all out. Now this is before Excel. This is just manually writing it all. And I, I presented this to the banker and he said, you know, I've never seen a doctor come with any kind of analysis whatsoever. And I had never heard of a business analysis. I didn't know that's what I was presenting. I was just presenting an analysis of where I thought my future, how I would work it out. And I think that analysis of poems or any kind of literature is a tool that can be used for anything, anything. Business, science, you name it. Well, I think that Williams is a significant part of my life because that's been my area of focus. But, but literature and the arts in general are really, really the part of my life that that's just a subcategory of. And I think it's, I think it's really important. I know, I know other physicians, for example, who have retired like I have, and, or not retired, because some of them have said, what else would I do? And I remember during my practice years hearing retired people say, I never knew how much, how I had time to work. Well, I, I, that's what I think now. I, I never, I Had no idea that I could have so many interests and that they would be so fulfilling. And I think that that the arts do that. And so, man, no matter what we do in our professional lives and exposure to the arts, even if it's put off for 50 years during a professional career, just the slightest little bit of introduction comes back and you're able to, you know, rekindle that flame.

[C]

I find myself reflecting on the word depends a lot. So much depends that I think it was one of the first poems I was introduced to. Probably for many students in introductory poetry class, something but depends. And for me, it felt like there was just such deep possibility in that word. You know, how is he using it? What are the different levels of use of that word? And it helped me to begin thinking about the words that patients were using and how can I sit with those words and really, like, deeply listen and not try to assume that I know how they're using it, to kind of sit quietly and wonder with them, to ask follow up questions so that they could continue to have their story unfold. That I wasn't imposing necessarily a meaning on it, that I was trying to let that meaning almost emerge through their storytelling. So I feel like William's writing really helped me to think about, like, that word depends, like, the depth of or the levels that people's stories contain.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Thank you guys so much. This has been just a wonderful conversation about the power of people, of sharing words as crucibles of culture and of emotion and really of the flames that maintain us as people. So thank you guys so much for today. It's really been a wonderful conversation.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

Yeah, thank you for the invitation.

[B]

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