Suzanne Edison blends illness with poetry at her Tabula Poetica reading
Poet and therapist Suzanne Edison reads poems from her book, “Since the House Is Burning,” over Zoom to a Chapman audience on Nov. 7. Photo courtesy of TAB Journal
In Suzanne Edison’s collection of poetry, “Since the House Is Burning,” the poet and therapist draws on her experience of raising her adopted daughter from Guatemala and helping her battle the rare autoimmune disease juvenile myositis.
By referencing other poets and the experiences of parents with sick children, Edison is able to blend the heartache of having an ill loved one with her linguistic prowess and communicate themes of health, illness and disability to the public. On Nov. 7, Edison read poetry, including pieces from “Since the House Is Burning,” as part of the Tabula Poetica poetry reading series and Wilkinson College’s Engaging The World: Health Equity series.
Edison was unable to read in person, so she Zoomed in on a TV in Argyros Forum from her home in Seattle. She read 10 poems along with an additional poem at the request of an attendee.
Edison also has experience working in hospitals as a therapist. She started support groups for parents with children who had the same condition because if she “needed support as a therapist, somebody else needed support too.”
Writing also proved to help her as she took care of her own sick child.
“When my daughter got sick, writing poetry was what saved me. I needed it to stay sane, to try to manage the realities of my experience and to try to understand and hold it all in some way, shape or form. (So) the poem became a container in that experience.”
Attendees completed a writing exercise about halfway through the poetry readings. Photo by LAILA FREEMAN, News Editor
About halfway through her poetry reading, Edison offered the attendees the following prompt:
Take a moment to write down the word ‘illness’ or ‘disease.’ Make a list of all the images, facts, your sensory awareness and thoughts that come to you. Write about something you live with or about someone whom you care about or have cared for.
Use any of these as a way to compare the illness/disease to:
Colors
Textures
Shapes
Sounds, Sights, Tastes, Smells, etc.
Plants, or other elements of nature, animals
Non-human machines or inventions
Were there specific words or descriptions that you want to make sure you remember?
Edison gave attendees about 10 minutes to complete this exercise before continuing to read more poetry.
She continued with another poem, “On American Violence,” which picks apart the “milky boys” who murder innocent people, including people of color, in mass shootings.
The final poem Edison read before taking questions was “After Remission, Her First Tattoo.” Although Edison’s daughter’s disease has no cure, she has gone into remission and is off medication. This poem was about the first tattoo her daughter got when she turned 18.
Part of the poem read, “...It was the location she chose— / familiar bench of her left, inner arm / exposed and soft as morning haze / where once tubes were tied / above her bulbous vein…”
Edison now trains doctors in implementing mental health into pediatric rheumatology and is involved with the Cure JM Foundation for families affected by juvenile myositis.
“I feel like I’m really reinventing myself for like the third or fourth time in the world. So, I want to say to all of you, it is possible, and it is important that you do that. It’s important to fall apart, and it’s important to find the way back together. It is not a shame to ask for help, and it is not a shame to fall apart.”
Edison also shared the inspiration behind the title of her poetry collection.
“There's some political pieces and there's some pieces about our environment because the title, ‘Since the House Is Burning,’ is really about all of the ways that our democracy and our world, physical world and our bodies are burning,” she said. “So, there's a poem in there that has this Italian adage that my father-in-law used to say: ‘Since the house is burning, let us warm ourselves.’”
Before Edison logged off, she gave writing advice to the attendees.
“Don’t be afraid to go out and live your life in addition to writing. Make time for your writing, but also live life in the world because I think it feeds your work really deeply.”
Noor Vakili, a first-year getting her master of fine arts in creative writing, attended Edison’s poetry reading and stated that Edison’s poetry about medical ailments will impact her own writing.
“I have my own family experience with medical illnesses, and I never really thought about writing about that until going to her talk about her collection of poems and seeing the way in which she picked out certain aspects of that whole experience to talk about,” Vakili said.
Tessa Woodall, a second-year graduate student in the dual master’s in English and creative writing program, shared her thoughts on Edison’s reading.
“I thought (Edison) was very interesting,” Woodall said. “She dealt with really heavy topics like illness and politics and the state of the world in such a gentle manner, but still, it was really strong. Never came off as super sad or preachy. She really did a great job.”
The next poetry event in the series will be a Master of Fine Arts poetry reading on Dec. 12 at the Wallace All Faiths Chapel.
“I thought (Edison) was very interesting. She dealt with really heavy topics like illness and politics and the state of the world in such a gentle manner, but still, it was really strong. Never came off as super sad or preachy. She really did a great job.”
