Why I Write Poems

As soon as I learned how, I took to reading the fairy tales of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, the epic stories "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Mallory's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the complete Mother Goose rhymes, and Robert L. Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" - and curl up in a chair and totally enjoy them. In between romps climbing the guava and mango trees in our yard and pretend-playing in my miniature kitchen, I lose myself in mind trips in those stories. Oh, I had fun with rhymes like "The Owl and the Pussycat", "Eletelephony" and other poems that I committed to memory and recited in my head to calm me down in times of stress or entertain me during moments of boredom. I later fell in love with the narrative epic of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", the lyrical sonnets of Shakespeare, and the poignant pieces of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Frost. Discovering Rumi, Mary Oliver, W.B. Yeats and Pablo Neruda led to deeper and passionate love for poetry, so much that poetry became a therapy for my soul. I started writing poetry in my English Class in high school. It was a silly ditty about a love interest at that time. I was surprised my teacher gave it a "thumbs up" and asked me to read it in front of the class. I was taken aback at first, but as soon as the opening lines escaped my lips, I was alone within myself. I was just a girl standing there expressing an unrequited love and how it has hurt and broken my heart. When I finished reciting my poem, I slowly looked up and saw the class in front of me. They were staring as if they were also caught in my reverie. They started clapping. And me? I was relieved. I was healed! I had opened my heart and soul and out came the negative feelings and it was therapeutic! No, it was more. It was cathartic and exhilarating at the same time. During my years in Philippine Science High School, I had my fill of literature, both prose and poetry, from all over the world. I did critiques of novels like "Dr Zhivago" and "The Count of Monte Cristo", read the "Ramayana" and "Bhagavad Gita", and became more exposed to world history and the ancient empires. The experience fueled my desire to write poems even more. I began scribbling poems not just in English, but also in Filipino. I also needed to sharpen my essays in my native language since I was the Editor of the Lagablab (Conflagration/Flame), the Filipino newspaper of our institution. I wonder now if I might have taken the humanities or liberal arts if I went to another high school. But my educational path didn't me give that choice; I had to take up a science-related course, and it was medicine. The seven-year medicine course of the University of the Philippines brought me into the realm of the healing arts. The absolute dedication of one's talent, effort, time and resources to learn how heal the sick took a toll on my own physical and spiritual reserves. Poetry writing, reading books, music, dance, and dreaming about faraway places were the therapeutic regimen that kept me from burnout. They were my escape. Enter neurosurgery. It's a calling I believe, a continuous challenge, a never ending realm of learning about the nervous system and performing delicate surgeries that impact the lives of patients and their loved ones. Brain surgery takes me deep into a person's consciousness, memory and feelings. A tiny misstep can lead to life-long paralysis, profound memory loss, behavioral changes, not to mention the most dreaded complication of all - Death. I have been a brain surgeon for the last 22 years and I have experienced the highs and lows of my work. The one thing that relaxes and re-charges me is reading books and writing poems. I could not do karaoke or ballroom dancing or scuba diving while waiting for my next patient to be wheeled into the operating theatre. The only thing I could do is write poems on my iPhone or edit my iPhone photos. They enable me to re-focus and keep me calm during all-nighters of emergency craniotomies. Writing poems keeps me sane during the hectic and chaotic days of being in the whirlwind of neurosurgical activity and training. My poetry or what I like to call my Brainpoetry is my therapy. These rhymes passionately reflect my love for life and nature. As I seek to balance my inner (medical) and outer worlds, I also make it a point to travel extensively. These adventures took me to the Arctic Circle and the North Pole to witness and write about the aurora borealis; to exotic Turkey; to the Ancient Inca realms in Machu Picchu; to most of Europe and Asia and the USA; to Australia and South Africa. I expressed my exhilaration and fascination through my poems and the iPhone photos I managed to snap to document my memories in letters and pictures. I found solace in writing poems and expressing myself in rhymes, but they were mine alone. For my eyes only. It took me a long time and much convincing from close friends to finally share my precious "creations" or "babies". In doing brain or spine surgery, most of the lesions, be it tumors, abnormal vessels or blood clots, are healed through an opening or a "window" in the skull or in the spine. I peek into these windows and access the diseased portions and remove it; thus, healing the patient. Similarly, writing poetry opens windows into my soul and takes out the negativism that could be a festering pus infecting my spirit. It opens windows into my heart to remove the malignant feeling of desperation and hopelessness. It opens windows into my mind to cauterize the lesion of cynicism, excise the burgeoning tumor of selfishness and judgmental criticism. Poetry heals me. It infuses into my circulation the positivity of acceptance, the energy of hope, and the power of love. I would like to share my poems with you. They have given me joy, gratitude and, most of all, healing. My only desire for you is to also have this healing and peace and love. May these poems open windows into your soul and guide you in your journey.

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Lynne Lourdes Lucena