"I am still a dancer made of song."
Poetry is an oft-misunderstood, but incredibly powerful art form. Humans have been writing poetry for thousands of years, communicating feelings and ideas in beautiful, powerful ways that prose just can't quite reach. Poetry can be hard to define, but you know it when you see it—or rather, when you feel it.
Emily Dickinson once wrote, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” A poem hits you somewhere—your brain, your heart, your gut. And one poem that packs an incredibly moving punch has come from an unlikely source—an elderly woman with dementia.
A woman with dementia wrote a poem with one of her children and it's bringing people to tears. Photo credit: Canva
Poet Joseph Fasano shared a message from a fan who shared that they had brought his book, "The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone," to their mother, a 92-year-old former ballet dancer living with dementia. The mother was excited to write a poem, and they slowly worked through a prompt from the book together aloud.
This poem was the result:
"Let the days be warm
Let the fall be long.
Let every child inside me find her shoes
and dance wildly, softly, toward the world.
I have a story I have never told
Once, when I was small,
I looked up at the sky and saw the wind
and knew I was a dancer made of song.
I am still a dancer made of song."
Wow. What a testament to the power of poetry to reach beyond our usual modes of communication, which dementia so cruelly disrupts. In a few simple lines, we're able to see this woman as she might see herself, as the human living under the veils of age and disease: "I am still a dancer made of song."
The person who shared the poem thanked Fasano for "helping people find their voices," which is exactly what his book of poetry prompts was meant to do.
"The Magic Words" is a book of poetry prompts from Joseph Fasano. Amazon
In the book's introduction, Fasano shares that he'd been invited to speak to a class of second graders in New Jersey in 2022 to share "the craft and magic of poetry." As part of his efforts, he came up with a poetry prompt that could "help guide their imaginations" and "unlock the images, thoughts and feelings inside them, without asking them to worry about how to structure a poem." He called the results "astonishing." When he shared one of the students' poems on social media, it and the prompt took off like wildfire, as people who never thought of themselves as poets felt empowered to share their imaginations within that framework.
From 7-year-olds to 92-year-olds, anyone can benefit from the self-expression that poetry facilitates, but many people feel hesitant or intimidated by the idea of writing a poem. Fasano writes, "Poetry is what happens when we let ourselves be," and this idea seems so clear than in the former dancer's poem above. Dementia can create roadblocks, but poetry provides a different avenue of communication.
Caregivers try many different ways to communicate with people living with dementia. Photo credit: Canva
Using poetry to help dementia patients communicate and express themselves isn't just wishful thinking. Studies have demonstrated that cultural arts interventions, including poetry specifically, can be beneficial for people with dementia. In fact, the Alzheimer's Poetry Project (APP) aims to use poetry as a means of improving the quality of life of people living with dementia by facilitating creative expression. "We do not set boundaries in our beliefs in what possible for people with memory impairment to create," the APP website states. "By saying to people with dementia, we value you and your creativity; we are saying we value all members of our community."
Fasano has shared that a team of doctors has begun using his poetry prompts to "give people with dementia a voice again."
Poet Gary Glazner, who founded APP, shared a story with WXPR radio about how he came up with the idea while studying poetry at Sonoma State University:
“I applied for a grant and got a grant to work at an adult care program. The moment I love to share with people is there was a guy in the group, head down, not participating and I said the Longfellow poem. ‘I shot an arrow into the air’ and his eyes popped open and he said, ‘It fell to earth I know not where.’ And suddenly he was with us and participating. It was just this powerful moment to see how poetry could be of use to elders but specifically with people with dementia."
Whether we read it, write it, speak it or hear it, poetry has the power to reach people of all ages in all kinds of mysterious ways.
You can follow Joseph Fasano on Twitter and Instagram, and find his books on Amazon.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
School threatens mom with CPS after missed calls. They never called dad.
Being the default parent can be tough all on its own, but society places an additional burden on mothers to be the default parent. One of the places this shows up is in phone calls home from school. One mom claims that the school threatened to call Child Protective Services (CPS) on her if she did not answer her phone and retrieve her child from school. But the mother works a job where she is not permitted to have her phone on her person, which is why she has the child's father listed as the first contact.
Every year parents register their children for school, they fill out a form for emergency contacts and people permitted to pick up your child in the event a parent can't be there. Parents generally take great pains to fill this information out as accurately as possible, with the preferred parent at the top. This is to ensure the child is never stranded on school grounds if a parent cannot be reached.
Student daydreaming during class lecture.Photo credit: Canva
Even when parents are divorced or were never married, typically, both the mother and father are listed. Yet schools often default to the mother, no matter what the circumstance. In cases of split custody, the school is generally given a copy of the custody agreement, and the teachers are often made aware of which week or days belong to which parent. In the event the teacher gets things mixed up, most children will inform the teacher which parent to call if they're sick or need to be picked up earlier than usual.
While parents work to coordinate, schools seem to fall into the societal expectation that the mother of the child is the default parent, throwing all instruction out the window. In the original post shared on Reddit, the frustrated mom explains that the school called her a whopping 16 times, though they're aware that her job does not allow her to have her phone. She thought there was some sort of tragedy. Never once between those 16 phone calls did they bother to call her husband.
Cozy nap time: catching some Z's on the couch.Photo credit: Canva
"I assume she’s been hospitalized or there’s been an active shooter. Something horrible that warrants sixteen calls to the parent they were told not to call. I call the school frantically before even looking at my voice mail and find that they called me because she threw up. Threw up. Blood? Nope. Regular throw up. But because I didn’t answer this woman considered it ‘abandonment’ and made a call to CPS. I asked if they’d called my husband. Nope. Just me! And I didn’t answer, which isn’t allowed."
I've experienced this personally, minus threatening to call CPS. My job requires me to travel to Los Angeles at least once per year. During that timeframe, I inform the teacher in writing that I will be out of town and that my husband will be the primary point of contact for our son. Still, it never fails: at least once while I'm away, I receive a message on Class Dojo informing me of a paper that needs to be signed, a missing library book, or some other trivial thing.
Focused work in a modern, plant-filled office space.Photo credit: Canva
When this happens, I become the middleman instead of the teacher, going directly to the "parent on duty." This phenomenon appears to be common, given the response to the woman's post, and it's driving both moms and dads insane.
One frustrated mom laments, "You know how many times I’ve had the school say 'your daughters sick' ok, well she’s at her dads house this week and I’m at work 'yeah, your daughter said she was at her dads, but figured you’d want to know' ok well her dad and I do actually talk soo… if she’s not dying, call the right parent??"
A military mom shares, "I was literally deployed and they tried calling me. Sure, that's going to work. Let me just tell my superiors that the school doesn't think I should be deployed when my kid has a fever."
Multitasking mom: working, baby in arms, and a curious pup.Photo credit: Canva
One dad says he struggles with getting the school to call him first, "I'm supposed to be our main contact. They have my phone number, can text me, we have the school app (like 4 different ones!), they have my work number. I have always been the one in the office, I have always been the one to call them. Annnnnnd; they call my wife"
Another parent says, "It seems like this is common, I work at a car dealership and my wife is a nurse so it's obviously easier for me to leave work. We put my number as the primary contact and they'd still call her, we went as far as to not give her phone number and only give mine and they've still gone out of their way to find her number and call her instead. Now she's the primary contact since that's what they're going to do anyways."
Caretaker comforts an unwell child with a thermal strip on her forehead.Photo credit: Canva
This dad is the primary parent and the school still doesn't call him: "It’s an absolute fight to get them to call me. I have my kids 2/3 of the time, take them to all appointments and extracurriculars, pack all the lunches, pick them up when there’s an emergency, sign all the paperwork, volunteer in their school and they STILL ALWAYS call their mom."
Clearly, this is societal stereotype that should be put to bed. Dads have become more involved as a whole as each decade passes, splitting domestic labor with their parenting partner more equitably. There are plenty of very capable fathers who care for their children just as well, if not better in some cases, than the mother.
Thankfully, in the case of the original Reddit post, the mother doesn't believe the school actually called CPS, but her experiences highlight the need for a shift in perspective when it comes to who can be the primary parent.
Empathy is different than sympathy.
Is empathy a real thing? Is it even possible to feel what another person feels if you've not experienced what they are going through? What differentiates it from sympathy or compassion?
While sympathy and empathy are often interchanged and overlap in meaning, the way the words are used differs. If we're looking dictionary definitions, Merriam-Webster sums up the differences:
Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional experience.
In other words, sympathy is feeling for someone, while empathy is feeling with someone. While some might feel it's impossible to feel empathy for a person if you haven't experienced exactly what they have, that's not really an accurate depiction of what empathy entails. Digging into the three types of empathy—cognitive, emotional, and compassionate—may help us understand.
The word "cognitive" refers to "conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)" and cognitive empathy is "the ability to identify and understand emotions of others."
Essentially, cognitive empathy means we can look at a person's experience, use our intellect to imagine what it would feel like, and form an understanding of how the person is feeling. For instance, let's say your friend's dog died and you've never even had a dog. If you have knowledge of how close the bond can be between a human and a dog, and you've seen how much your friend loved their dog, you can imagine how they are feeling. You don't have to have lost a dog yourself in order to imagine yourself having a close bond with dog and losing them.
Cognitive empathy involves understanding how others feel.Photo credit: Canva
Another example of cognitive empathy is when you see a refugee finally get resettled after fleeing a war zone and sitting for years in limbo and being able to understand their feelings of relief and hope. You don't have to have lived with war or waited years for safety and security in order to understand the feelings those experiences would evoke.
Cognitive empathy allows us to connect with others through an understanding of emotions. It says, "I can see things through your eyes and understand why you feel the way you do."
What sets emotional empathy apart from cognitive empathy is the role our own emotions play. Emotional empathy isn't just understanding; it's experiencing the emotions of the other person. If your friend whose dog died starts to cry and you start to cry, too, that's emotional empathy. If you see the relief on the face of the refugee and find your shoulders dropping and your heart rate slowing and a feeling of calm come over you, that's emotional empathy.
Emotional or affective empathy means feeling what another feels.Photo credit: Canva
Emotional empathy doesn't necessarily mean you've experienced what the other person is experiencing, but rather that you share the emotions of the other person in response to their experience. Tearing up when others cry, feeling joyous when others celebrate, getting angry when others are mad—all manifestations of emotional empathy.
While emotional empathy (also known as affective empathy) can creates strong connections with people, it can also be exhausting if it's not kept in check.
While sometimes wrapped into the former two, compassionate empathy differs in that it's marked by a desire to act. When you understand a person's feelings and/or feel along with them and want to do something to alleviate their pain or suffering, that's compassionate empathy (sometimes also called "empathic concern").
Let's say you met that refugee while they were still in limbo and afraid for their future. Compassionate empathy might lead you to look for programs that could help them or to volunteer with refugee organizations to help others in similar circumstances.
Empathy helps us connect with our fellow humans and encourages social cohesion. Without empathy, it's much easier to turn a blind eye to injustice and suffering.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Understanding empathy is important not only for connecting with others going through a difficult time, but for all relationships with others in our lives. For instance, psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman explains the three types of empathy in the context of leadership and why having all three creates the best foundation for effective leadership.
“In general, empathy is a powerful predictor of things we consider to be positive behaviors that benefit society, individuals, and relationships,” Karina Schumann, PhD, a professor of social psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, told Upworthy. “Scholars have shown across domains that empathy motivates many types of prosocial behaviors, such as forgiveness, volunteering, and helping, and that it’s negatively associated with things like aggression and bullying.”
Empathy comes more naturally to some than others, especially considering these three manifestations of it, but it's a skill that everyone can cultivate. The American Psychological Association suggests multiple ways people can consciously boost their empathy:
- Expose yourself to differences (which helps to provide more context for other people's perspectives)
- Read more fiction (character-driven stories can help us better understand people's thoughts, feelings, and motivations)
- Harness oxytocin (increase this social hormone through more eye contact and soft physical touch)
- Identify common ground (the more we see ourselves in others the more easily we find empathy)
- Ask questions (the more we know about one another, the better we understand)
- Know your blocks (learn where you struggle with empathy and work through those struggles)
- Second-guess yourself (stay humble and open to learning, questioning your negative assumptions about people)
A world with more empathy benefits us all in the long run, so it's worth understanding what it entails and how to cultivate it in ourselves.
