Poetry of Compassion

Carrie Gendle, a senior at Concordia University Irvine, 2014年，他在一家老年痴呆症患者护理机构找到了一份工作. 这部作品出乎意料的个人性质激发了一本记录她深刻感受的诗集.

“我完全不知道自己陷入了什么境地，”詹德尔说. “I had never experienced Alzheimer’s firsthand. I was jumping in blind. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll give it a shot.’”

于是，她开始了为期三个月的与阿尔茨海默氏症和痴呆症患者的生活之旅. The home was located in a residential area. Gendle惊讶地发现她将直接与病人打交道.

“I’m a somewhat socially awkward person,” she says. “现在我和所有这些新朋友互动，不知道我和他们是否有什么共同之处. 你该如何和一个饱受病痛折磨却常常不知道自己在说什么的人交谈呢?”

她的第一个方法是客观而诚恳地处理它. 但很快她就发现，要做好她的工作，她必须把居民当作人来对待.

“It’s easy to say, ‘This is an empty shell. Nothing is left of who they were.’ But that’s not true,” Gendle says. “Everyone in the home had their unique personalities. They know what’s going on. When people were embarrassed or sad I realized, “我在这里是为了在各个方面照顾你，这意味着要了解你.’”

She soon learned each patient's quirks, 他们的历史，孩子和兄弟姐妹的名字，这样她就可以做一些活动来唤起他们的记忆. 她还引导他们度过那些他们想不起来、变得心烦意乱的时刻.

One man, renamed Steve in Gendle’s poetry, 他不会说话，会变得非常沮丧，打人，试图从家里逃跑. He had been kicked out of three previous homes.

“我想他恨我是因为我更年轻、更年轻，”詹德尔说. “但他有时会让你试着去听他说什么，他会说, ‘Will you hold my hand?“所以我坐在那里握着他的手，忍住不哭.”

了解每位居民的个性和习惯的细节对于为他们服务很重要.

“‘在饭前给这个人服药，而不是饭后，’”Gendle说. “‘This person will want to stay at the table; this person will want to run off.’ It takes time to learn all those details.

一个人在吃晚饭的时候，看到自己的盘子空了，还以为没人招待他. 嘉莉学会了他一吃完就把盘子收起来，免得把他弄糊涂了.

她说:“小细节会让你很快与人建立联系。. “我告诉我妈妈，‘这份工作很辛苦，但我没有办法不去做.’”

In an advanced creative writing class 在欧文的康考迪亚大学，关于这段经历的诗歌开始涌现. Gendle wrote a poem called “Steve,” which so impressed professor Thea Gavin ’95, 加文鼓励詹德尔写一本关于她在家里的经历的小册子. (chapbook是一种装订好的小诗集，有时还包括插图.)

“Carrie is phenomenal,” says Gavin. “It was such a privilege to work with her. 一周又一周，她带来了这些生动、感人、风趣得体的诗歌. I would cry pretty much every week over a poem. My father and mother both have dementia. 在这段诗歌探索之旅中，能陪伴在嘉莉身边是我的荣幸. 她是一个细节大师，正是这些细节让故事生动起来——她观察到的细节的真实性和权威性.”

Working at the Alzheimer’s home fed Gendle’s creativity. “作为一名护理人员，你就像一位诗人，因为你必须注意细节，”詹德尔说. “‘He’s not eating his fruit today. What does that mean? 也许他的健康状况每况愈下，情绪也随之恶化.作为一个护理者，你所需要的警惕和作为一个诗人所需要的警惕是一样的.”

你作为一个照顾者所需要的警觉，就是你作为一个诗人所需要的警觉.

尽管她怀疑自己的诗歌是否足够写一本小书, with Gavin’s encouragement, 詹德尔创作了一组诗歌，读起来就像她的经历之旅.

加文说:“她的天赋之一是乐于尝试自己的诗歌风格。. “她有散文、十四行诗、病人、护理者的不同观点，还有她自己的观点. It was a wonderful project and quite an accomplishment.”

詹德尔说，她拿着第一本这本书太兴奋了，她走到车里尖叫起来.

“整个创意写作课程让我更加坚信，这就是我想做的事情，”她说. “我喜欢被带着去旅行，看到个人的一面，听别人讲故事. Writing will be a lifelong thing for me. This is not my last chapbook, that’s for sure.”

Gendle shared her poems at a campus poetry presentation. “年轻人害怕老年人和老年痴呆症，”Gendle说. “[With these poems] they can see the connection. 老年痴呆症患者不是怪物，也不可怕. They’re just people.”

康考迪亚大学欧文分校帮助Gendle确认她想成为一名英语教授, like Gavin.

“I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the English department,” Gendle says. “I’m incredibly impressed by it. 加文教授对她教的东西很有热情, and has such a great attitude and strong faith. It made me want to teach people more.”

在Gendle工作的最后一天，史蒂夫，那个撞人并试图逃跑的病人，死了. Gendle spent time with him in his last hours. “I really cared about this person,” she says. “我花了三个月的时间来了解他，现在他走了. 那段经历让我很难过，这也激发了我写诗的灵感.”

Carrie graduates in May, 然后她将结婚并搬到萨克拉门托继续写作和攻读研究生，这样她就可以开始教书了.

“我喜欢帮助人们学会爱上这种我非常喜欢的疯狂语言，”她说. “The desire to help people write has never gone away.”