What Poetry Means for Doctors and Patients During a Pandemic

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WIRED: Why do you think poetry has become so important to so many doctors during the pandemic?

Rafael Campo: I think doctors in particular are really searching for ways to give voice to their experiences of this terrible disease and what we’re all going through in confronting it.

It’s particularly poignant, I think, because we’re so isolated by this virus.

We’re all practicing physical distancing and social distancing, so I think poetry becomes a way of connecting with other people and having our story heard.

RC: We’re hardwired to hear the kinds of rhythms that are present in poetry and the ways in which the rhythms of our bodies are expressed in meter, in the music of poetry.

I think especially now, when we’re feeling in some ways estranged from our own bodies and disconnected, having that visceral experience of hearing the music and language is just compelling.

I think other reasons have to do with the brevity of poetry.

In a way, poetry fits into the fragmented spaces that we have as doctors, as we’re running around trying to deal with this crisis.

I always think back to my time when I was really early in my training as a physician, during the height of the AIDS crisis.

WIRED: You’ve also written about how poetry can empower patients.

You once said, “We come to poetry, I think, because we are silenced in many ways … Writing gives patients an opportunity to say, this is my cancer, this is my HIV.” Why is it so important for patients to reclaim ownership of their individuality in that medical context?

Of course, none of us can be present fully all the time, every minute of every day, in the experience of other people’s suffering.

We remove ourselves so much from what our patients are going through that we can actually—ironically, perhaps—feel more energized and more refreshed, more renewed, by really looking into the eyes of our patients, really sharing in their humanity, and being present for them in a way that I think reconnects me to my own sense of being human.

But I think I can still heal and provide comfort and do something really tremendously meaningful for that person in that moment.