Poetry and the Battle Against Cognitive Decline

11/10/2008

This is a risky thing to admit in a blog, but I am experiencing cognitive decline. Sounds melodramatic doesn't it? Unfortunately, this is one of the well-known side effects of chronic kidney disease and dialysis. I have to be honest. I am experiencing this daily. For example, I have found that my ability to concentrate has diminished. My memory is no longer as crisp as a cold Fuji apple. Sometimes specific words I am looking for vanish in a curl of vapor just before materializing on the tip of my tongue. The worst and most frustrating aspect is that my ability to make connections quickly is gone.

Think of it like this; imagine you are an excellent jazz pianist. You have internalized the music and instrument. When you play the music just flows from your fingertips. You easily touch ether without the burden of consciously calculating every note Now imagine you are forced to play with ski gloves. Not only would it blunt your speed and technique, but you would have to rethink nearly every single aspect of how you play.

That is how I feel. Often time for me poems would "appear," translate themselves from the invisible and appear on the page in just a few minutes. Now I find that a similar poem takes four or five hours to make its way to the page. In addition, when it arrives, it does not just need a little polish, everything is askew. It is not as if I missed a button on my shirt. It is more like the buttons are too large for the holes. It's damn defective. The meters all fucked up, god-awful cliches stare at me, and somehow the central threads of emotion are unraveled. This makes me unbelievably angry. Often times in the revisions poems take a much darker tone than I originally intended. I know this is not unique. I think back on other artists who have experience illness. It manifests itself in the work. How could it not?

What keeps me going? Pure stubbornness mixed with shot glass full of hope. I write poetry despite the frustrations because I simply must. What helps me play through the ski gloves is the fact that with a kidney transplant my cognitive ability could return. There is hope. Check it out.

http://www.transplantliving.org/community/news.aspx?id=1171