I believe that literature by and about nurses can answer the need for an inner life and provide us with other ways of knowing -- apart from scientific knowledge. As an educator I know that preparing students for nursing involves more than classroom and clinical instruction. It entails cultivation of the inner life, so poorly tended in contemporary culture.

New Nursing Anthology

This is a call to nurses. We are looking for nurses who:

Consider:

As an oral culture, nurses told their stories to one another, but felt little urgency to document our history. But what is not preserved cannot beckon or inspire. When asked the reason for their career choice, students often respond with tales of nurses who impacted their lives or the lives of loved ones. They come to nursing drawn by the magnetic force of another. When we accept guidance from someone we admire, are we then not vested to pass it on? And if we do so with greater generosity, would that affect the nursing shortage?

Whether we stay raises larger questions. What compels us to remain steadfast to commitment or open ourselves to change? This tension is central to our choices in vocations, marriages, political ideology. Whether we remain in practice (as does one of the editors) or seek professional fulfillment elsewhere (as does the other) those who crossed our paths impact our decisions. We invite the voices of other nurses to join us in writing toward self-knowledge and professional discernment.

Our writers have explored the guidelines in creative and innovative ways. Some pieces are “inspirational” in effect; however this is not our intention. Our goal is a thoughtful collection which testifies to the complexity of the nursing profession and the myriad variables which determine our response to it.

The collection is currently under consideration, but we will continue to look at submissions. Submit poems, short essays or prose pieces, 6-8 pages long, double spaced. Please send electronic copies to both:

Geraldine Gorman ggorman@uic.edu

Paula Sergi paula@paulasergi.com

Email: paula@paulasergi.com

Thursday, April 27 Reading and book signing

Society for the Arts in Health Care 15th Annual International Conference
“Charting the Course of Arts, Health and Medicine”
April 26 – 29, 2006, Chicago , IL

Saturday, May 5, 2006 Reading and book signing

Nurse-poet Paula Wettstein Sergi, BS’75, will return to Madison to present her poetry at NAO’s Alumni Day Celebration. At 9:30 AM she will read from her work published in The Poetry of Nursing, a compilation of poems and commentaries (Kent State University Press). Fluno Center,
601 University Avenue, University of Wisconsin, Madison Campus.
From Nurses’ Alumni Organization Newsletter, Spring, 2006.

January, 2006

Paula Sergi contributes chapter to The Poetry Of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse Poets, edited by Judy Schaefer, Kent State University Press, January, 2006, ISBN: 0-87338-848-8.

The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse-Poets

So much written about literature and medicine has been from the perspective of physicians. But in the last few years nurses have found their voices and are making important contributions to the field of biomedical and nursing humanities. These men and women professionals see different things and experience patients and health care issues in different contexts.

Judy Schaeffer has compiled this anthology of contemporary nurse-poets’ work, which is accompanied by their commentaries about their poetry, their work, and their lives. She has gathered contributions from some of the best-known nurse-poets as well as from those who deserve to be. The Poetry of Nursing will add significantly to the ever-growing body of literature that connects medicine, nursing, and the humanities.