Finding Your Poetic Voice on Care Opinion

I am Daniel Palmer, one of the moderators here at Care Opinion. It's my job to ensure stories are safe to publish. In the course of moderating I read a lot of stories, and as a student of poetry it's always heartening to see people bringing their creativity to the stories they share on Care Opinion.

Care Opinion is a forum which allows a multiplicity of voices to flourish. Every day, authors on Care Opinion tell their stories in a variety of tones. There is no one way to tell a story, as exemplified by the manifold ways in which authors share their thoughts and experiences.

One way in which authors on Care Opinion express their gratitude for the care they have received is in the form of poetry. When you delve into the panoply of voices that makes up Care Opinion, it becomes clear that authors love giving full flight to their poetic side.

The poems one finds on Care Opinion encompass every aspect of human experience. Authors recount the heights of joy and the depths of despair; with extraordinary candour they offer us an insight into their greatest and worst moments. Life is represented from beginning to end.

Author Shooting star recounts their joy and gratitude at leaving neonatal care with their baby boy, expressing the feeling of being forever bonded to the nurses with touching lines like:

It’s been one a hell of a journey

With its share of ups and downs

Yet even through the worst of it

We never saw you frown

It was the glow that comes off all of you

That kept us heading for the light

And even on the darkest days you said

“These babies they fight and fight.“

Care Opinion functions as a canvas onto which its authors paint vivid pictures of the emotional extremes that navigating health and social care can elicit. We find authors like pagersr33crafting a symbolic landscape in which their travails are transformed into a:

Beautiful wintery depression soup

with anxious sourdough croutons

and a side of rustic spiced self loathing.

I had a terrible childhood then into a break up.

Recipe ruined.

But they are still able to draw a measure of hope from the process of recovery:

Came to these sessions,

still working on this recipe but its good soup.

The resolve to keep going in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is a recurring theme. The tenacity of the human spirit shines through in every creative submission to Care Opinion.

This is particularly pronounced in those pieces which deal with the onset of sickness. The turbulence of that time is evoked by author (Littlevoice), who frames the stroke they suffered in terms of a scooter that has suffered a mechanical glitch and must be restarted, refuelled and sent back on its way with the help and kindness of the medical team who rallied to their aid:

My mode of transport has seriously changed.

Since someone above my life has rearranged.

A stroke they say, not of the pleasant kind.

Seems my friends has attack my mind.

Stolen most memories both, short and long.

Restarting one's life, at my age seems wrong.

Creativity becomes a tremendous resource in times of hardship, and many discovered hitherto untapped reservoirs of expression over the course of the pandemic. The self-reflection that a global lockdown afforded is brought into greater relief by a poem written, in thanks to the therapist education staff at Rampton Hospital, in the last three months of COVID restrictions:

Three months ago we felt so sad

we had lost activities we had always had

then you turned up and all was well

you created heaven from virus hell

without you we would never have coped

just stranded bored snappy and moped

so now we want to let you know

how great you been high and low

so celebrations now from us to you

 for all the wonders that you do

There is no shortage of originality from Care Opinion’s poets, as illustrated by author melw23, who shares a uniquely tragicomic account of coming to terms with their hearing loss:

What??? I’m getting old I’m getting deaf. Saps my confidence. It makes me wary. Traveling by bus is really scary.

I miss the bird song, but not barking dogs. I miss loving words, but not his snoring. I hate silent bikes, chattering diners, Missing subtitles, crackly telephones.

I’m getting deaf. I’m getting old. I do need help on my life’s Odyssey. I am grateful for Audiology. The staff listen and they do hear my needs. For hearing aids and for comforting deeds.

melw23 is developing a distinctive voice on Care Opinion. I was able to speak with this author, and they told me that they find writing poetry in their Care Opinion persona to be very therapeutic and good for their wellbeing (they had two books published during the pandemic).

melw23 is currently recovering from a hip replacement, and provided me with their latest composition, ‘Hip Hip Hooray’, which was penned while they were staying in hospital:

A trip and a slip

Caused a broken hip.

I am not a crip.

That would make me flip.

I don’t want to mope.

I’m sure I can cope.

That is not soft-soap.

Hip to hop to hope.

Whether a celebration, jest or lament, the poetic efforts of Care Opinion’s authors are undoubtedly affecting. What shines through is the clarity of the emotion which underlies their creativity, bringing home just how powerful a tool for communication Care Opinion can be.