"The goal of the evening is to celebrate and honor people's creativity and courage," Landis said. "It's an opportunity to share their reflections and words with other people."
Deb Steele, the manager of the Patient and Family Support System at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, provided the opening remarks and introduced the hospital's creative writing program, which was founded two years ago and is currently facilitated by Landis. Steele said poetry "can offer insights not just for authors and poets, but for the listeners."
Landis has taught creative writing at virtually every level, from kindergarten to college, and has worked as a part of the hospital's arts program for the past two years. The hospital offers writing groups for both patients and loved ones.
"I've seen many people use the arts, and writing, as a way to process what they're going through, and kind of bring deeper things up to consciousness and deal with it," Landis said.
The center has found success in helping patients and family members cope with illness through the arts, according to Landis.
"We ask people to fill out an evaluation card, where they actually rate their feelings before and after a creative writing or art and music session," Landis said. "The results are pretty amazing in terms of reporting gains."
Sheila Drury, a patient who read two poems at the event, echoed Landis' sentiments as she described her personal feelings and connection with the process of writing during cancer treatment.
"I've probably written 100 to 200 poems, and it's a good way to get things out I think," Drury said. "Sometimes my husband will say that's depressing,' but I say it's kind of like the blues. That's what the blues are, words about difficult situations, and sometimes that connects you with other people who are in the same boat or similar situations and makes you feel that you are not alone."
Drury noted that the sense of community in the creative writing group allows patients to emphathize with others who, though also undergoing treatment, are having an entirely different experience.
"Sometimes you'll think a certain way about one thing, but then you'll hear otherwise through poetry people have written," Drury said.
Each reader at the event touched on a different feeling or emotion in his or her poetry, and the event was filled with everything from tears and extreme silence to whole-hearted laughs as a result.
One of those sources of laugher came from Carole Spearin McCauley, a published writer and breast cancer survivor.
"I'm going to read some poems we can all laugh at," McCauley said before her reading. "One is about our national drink. It's not beer. It's coffee."
More laughter erupted during her poem "Addict's Verse," as well as "Kicking Bricks Or When Did I Get So Stiff?" a facetious ode to getting older.
While all of the poems grabbed at audience members' heartstrings, some poems were more emotionally rattling than others. The honesty and sincerity present in of all the readers' works and the audience's reception certainly demonstrated the importance of sharing such troubles.
"Years ago people used to be so ashamed of their illnesses, called it the C word,' people didn't want to appear weak," McCauley said. "It's good that people can talk frankly and kindly about their illnesses."
Guests of the event were provided with a printed booklet of the poems read throughout the evening."Some of the pieces I've submitted [to the event], I've had a couple published in anthologies," said Drury, "I'm thinking of putting together a collection of them."
