A Letter To Our Readers From the Authors of Issue 8

By the Réapparition Journal Editorial Team

In light of Issue 8’s upcoming release, we asked our authors about what they would like to convey to our readers– How does writing out their narrative help them personally? How would they like it to help others? What would they like others to take away from your experience? After intense deliberation in selecting these pieces from a vast number of submissions, we are excited to showcase the works in Issue 8; here, we present some of the sentiments behind a select few pieces from the issue.

Katherine Breeden

I wrote, Holes, in response to my mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s and dementia. This piece is my way to try and understand not only my mother’s experience, but also my own. I think when you have a loved one living with an illness, you experience an anticipatory grief, waiting for the inevitable, but also trying to hang onto the person you love so much. I have always told myself to try and meet my mother where she is and to accept the progression of her disease. At the end of this poem, I imagine my mother and I standing in this literal and figurative hole, and that within her disease, we create something new together.  This poem is a message of love to her and to others who may have a loved one living with Alzheimers or dementia. 

Gary Moak MD

I am a geriatric psychiatrist. If you can’t fathom what I do or why an old person would see a mental health professional, you may be part of the problem. But it’s not your fault. Mental health and aging are not widely understood, ignorance and misunderstanding being the rule rather than the exception. My story, Mercury Descending, will not clarify any of this for you.  Suffice to say that my patients come not from the ranks of the air-brushed AARP models or aging screen stars featured in ads touting the newest and greatest anti-aging lotions or potions while blithely dismissing age as just a number. Sure, age is a number, but sooner or later your number is up, and when it is there is no limit to the number of ways that physical and mental health problems can make your golden years miserable. 

Depression, anxiety, chronic pain, personality changes, behavioral disturbances, and dementia are among the problems for which my patients seek my help. I witness how they fight their way upstream trying to preserve their self-esteem, dignity, and wellbeing against a current made ever more swift by the prejudice and discrimination of ageism. I see the toll ageism takes on many, but also how some refuse to let chronic illness or old-age stereotypes define them. Along the way I have learned that storytelling can be more effective than public advocacy (I’ve tried it) at changing hearts and minds, so I have turned to fiction writing to tell my patients’ stories. In that vein, I am both delighted and grateful that Réapparition Journal has chosen to publish Mercury Descending.

Mercury Descending is about an elderly combat veteran who has been invisible to his forty-something neighbors. Narrated from their point of view, it depicts how their ageist insensitivity and indifference to him evolve, or fail to, as circumstances thrust them together forcing them to see him as a person for the first time. I hope it leaves you encouraged that ageism can be vanquished one day along with the rest of the pernicious isms plaguing society.  

Kristin L. LaFollette, Ph.D.

My most recent poetry project (which includes the poems published in Issue 8) focuses on my experiences working in a year-long internship program in various clinical and hospital settings while managing my own injury, surgery, and recovery. The same year, my father was in a near-fatal accident that led to a lengthy hospital stay and rehabilitation, so the poems navigate my varied experiences in medicine during that time period.

I was young and inexperienced when I entered the internship program and was often terrified: of doing the wrong thing, of being asked to do something I hadn’t practiced enough, of not being able to do what was needed because of the injury to my hand and wrist. Further, the situation with my father was incredibly traumatic and had an immense (and lasting) impact on my family. It seems counterintuitive to write about difficult things, but for me, writing about these experiences has been comforting, almost therapeutic. I feel like I’m able to talk about these events with an openness that wasn’t there before.  

I hope my poems remind others how important a humanistic approach is in healthcare. People seeking medical care are sick, in pain, and possibly at their most vulnerable. Providers need to remember what it’s like to be a patient and honor the trust patients put in them by bringing an empathetic, compassionate approach to each interaction.

Clare Bonetree

'To My New Neighbours The Bees' is the first poem I wrote on moving to my new home, after several difficult years. It's also the first poem I've published after a decades-long hiatus, during which I barely wrote poems, although I did make time for various forms of creative practice. Coming back to poetry has been in part about giving myself permission to please myself - give myself pleasure - with my creative work; for a long time I dedicated all of my life to serving others, in different ways - even reorienting my creative practice to serve and include others. It took burnout, illness, and experiences of harm and isolation to finally push me into a place where healing could take place. And here I met some solitary bees going about their own healing business. I am very pleased to welcome the readers of Réapparition Journal into my little back yard and introduce you to my new friends and neighbours.

Tommy Vetter

I am able to live a more authentic life, which is more aligned with my true persona and passions. I am less concerned with yesterday or tomorrow and more focused on today. I have a greater sense of mindfulness and thus more often peace and contentment. I can heal the healer within me, which I do for myself and my patients.

Your common lived experience can become one of greater intentionality, mindfulness, and self-awareness. A new dimension to your own psyche and consciousness emerges, or perhaps more accurately, reemerges. You are more fully immersed in the moment, more aware of your breathing and the movement of your wondrous body, and more connected to the natural world. 

I have found a new and safe dwelling place. There are kindred spirits and like-minded souls among my fellow travelers, who are lighting the way for me along my own transformative journey. Having worked for so long in a highly competitive environment dominated by individual achievement, I am profoundly grateful for this genuine affirmation that I receive from these fellow travelers.

I now feel more confident that for me, in the words of George Eliot, née Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” For me, both what I was in an earlier more idealistic time in my life, and what I might have become if I had the courage to allow myself to become.

Rebecca Agauas

Writing out my narrative helps me personally by expressing the mixed emotions that live inside my head. Verbalizing emotions can be difficult sometimes and writing allows me to express myself freely and share what I might not otherwise say aloud. I would like it to help others by showing them that they’re not alone. We all go through different experiences but we share the same emotions. I was a little hesitant to become a advocate and share my story but once I did it opened up a whole new side of me I didn’t know existed and I met some the most amazing human beings I get to call my friends. 

I would like others to take away from my experience by knowing yes, there will be dark days, but there is so much good in you and in others. Don’t dim your light and don’t let others dim your light for you. 

My biggest take away, laugh. Laugh hard, laugh often. Speak up and speak out. Live your life authentically as you. Share your story. Find your community, the people that will support and love you unconditionally. Keep expressing yourself through your art. The world needs it.

Victoria Molta 

Writing my narrative gives me a chance to look within myself and make sense or meaning of experiences that I have questions about in my life. It gives me a chance to release the struggles and challenges on paper and computer.

I would like my narrative to give the reader a chance to connect to my words and feel less alone, more hopeful; human to human. I want my work to inspire, offer connections and hope. We all need each other.

I would generally like to say to the reader that life for everyone and particularly those with chronic mental health challenges can be difficult. But change is not only possible, but probable. Never give up. There is beauty in the world too.

Beth Sturges

Writing this article definitely gave me a new perspective on the condition and has allowed me to deal with a great deal of previously unspoken feelings. I can’t help but wonder how my life may have turned out had I been diagnosed as an adolescent, but I also recognize that even if I had learned the truth sooner, there is no guarantee my life would have been better than it is now. Given the chance to go back and change things, I’m not sure I would. I wouldn’t want to risk losing the life and relationships I have now. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my article about Adult ADHD. It is my sincere hope that someone out there who is undiagnosed can relate to Peggy’s or my story and is inspired to talk with their physician. 

Tamizh Ponni

"Cathartic and Therapeutic" are the two words that come to my mind to describe writing. It's always nice to get it all out of your chest regardless of it getting published or not. Writing is a powerful medium for inner monologue/dialogue that shows how important it is to be reflective in our lives. Personally, writing has connected me with people who have empathized with my challenges and struggles.  

I encourage people to put their pens on the paper or fingers on the keys with a razor-sharp focus on their thoughts. This unfiltered first draft is the best foundation one can lay for a beautiful structure that gets erected after multiple revisions. Sometimes, it's best to keep our prejudices and thirst for external validation at bay while writing. These factors heavily influence our thought process and dilute one's individuality. Integrity is the key to create an authentic piece of writing.

No matter how bad or good your life is going, make time to read and write. Those practices give you a sense of belonging and instill a lot of confidence. We are not alone in having these thoughts and going through a wave of emotions day in and day out. Whatever personality type one wants to be associated with, extrovert, introvert, or ambivert, writing connects us all.

In all my stories/poems, there's a streak of morbidness. Not to sound too pessimistic or nihilistic but that's how life is. All we can do to survive is find ways to appreciate the beauty in terror. I use words to describe something tragic with dark humor so my readers can smile at my expense. It is as fulfilling as doing a stand-up comedy with self-deprecating jokes. After all, life is a dramedy. 

Martin Duffy

I am delighted to have the opportunity to add my frank comments as a writer to promote the current issue's release. As someone who struggles with chronic pain and psychological injury as an innocent victim of the conflict in Northern Ireland, writing is a release. I also teach creative writing to trauma survivors so I can speak from the inside in expressing how my narrative helps as a form of catharsis for my troublesome thoughts about one of Europe’s oldest and most brutal civil conflicts. I have found it as much help to myself as to my students in sharing this work with fellow survivors of the conflict. I always hope this work is a therapy and that it does not hurt. I am always balancing the possibility of remedy against the dangers of potential re-traumatisation.

In considering how I hope my writing and my creative writing teaching helps others in this very balanced way- that it soothes more than irritates- that where it may provoke buried anxiety- that it lets it out and leads to a sense of improvement.  So as both a writer and a tutor, what I most like others to take away from my experience is a sense of living life to the full, whatever the adversity previously experienced.  So, what would you like to generally say to my readers is probably more aptly expressed in the beautiful song, Mr Bojangles, most associated with Jerry Jeff Walker. We should all try to dance so high we aim to reach the sky.

In this response for Réapparition, I have sought to reflect honestly on my thoughts and feelings about writing poetry and fiction. As a child at elementary and even grade school we had many exercises in writing poetry. I suspect our teachers found this to be a more epistemologically manageable exercise than prose. With poetry one could be sufficiently oblique that the focus of one’s criticism or dissection could be explained away in the artistic licence of poetry. Prose was perceived as being much more contentious, especially non-fiction creative writing, where one might well say something highly politically controversial e.g., about the Irish conflict or the British arms raids on our homes, and provide the evidence to back it up. No, poetry was by far and away a safer form of creative writing experiment for our teachers and schools.

Stay tuned for Issue 8, coming out on November 23rd!

Best, 

The Réapparition Team and Issue 8 Authors