Poetry Contest Over At Patient Press

Patient Press, LLC Announces First Poetry Contest: "Putting It In Words: Poems About Cystic Fibrosis"

Wanna win $25 and a t-shirt*?

You better write a poem!!!

Who Should Submit:
The contest is open to all ages, Kindergarten through 110 years old!
CF patients and loved ones are all welcome to submit!
First time poets can take a crack at it!
Seasoned creative authors can use their creativity toward expressing their life with CF.

What You Should Submit:
Poetry and short prose are eligible for this contest.
We like funny poems. We like sad poems. We like goofy poems. We like angry poems. We like poems.
So many of you have poems on your blog and websites, those are all eligible.

How To Submit:
1. Please email patientpress@gmail.com
2. Include your name and email address.
3. Copy your poem into the body of the email, with a subject SUBMISSION and your last name.
4. Please share if you are a CF or transplant patient, though you need not disclose this, or be this, to be win.
5. Please tell me if you are a previously unpublished author (other than self-publishing).
6. Click this button to pay a small submission fee of $1 per poem- that's right, one dollar! If you submit more than one poem, SUPER! Just edit the quantity in PayPal. This small fee will help offset the costs of running the contest, such as mailing the poems between judges and possibly publishing the works submitted.

WINNERS will be announced on the Patient Press Blog and other internets on June 15th!!!
WINNING POEMS will be posted for May and June!
WINNERS in each category (adult, child), will each win a t-shirt and $25*!
HONORABLE MENTIONS in each category will also win a t-shirt*!
If there are enough entries, poems will be published!

When You Should Submit:
The contest is open May 1st through May 31st!

Why You Should Submit:
Obviously, the CF community has a story to tell. More people should hear it! Let's express ourselves.

Rules:
1. The contest is open May 1 - 31st, 2010
2. Please follow the submission guidelines above.
3. Family members of the judges are not eligible to win the contest, but may submit.
4. Work submitted must be original, and previously unpublished other than self-publishing.
5. The judges are:

Mary ElizaBeth Peters, Founding Director, Patient Press, CF patient and poet.

Theresa Peters, a Cystic Gal and bilateral lung transplant recipient who works full time as an accountant and has appeared as a guest blogger on CysticGal.

Kathleen Rooney, a founding editor of Rose Metal Press and the author, most recently, of the memoir Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object and the essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs. Her first book of poetry, Oneiromance (an epithalamion) was released in 2008 by the feminist publisher Switchback Books.

6. Don't you wanna submit? Don't ya? Don't ya?!!

7. Email me at PatientPress@gmail.com if you have any questions!

Other notes:
Alternative poetry forms (odd spacing, font or text break) can be submitting via USPS. Please email for more info.

You retain all rights to your work. Poetry will be posted for a limited time and removed upon your request.

Thanks for submitting!

*Prizes are subject to participation. Please get your friends to enter!

Back in the Saddle Again, Again, Again

Double Posted Poem

Goodbye to my dear cat, Samuel

Samuel
(c) MEP, April 2010

He liked to hold hands,
sing loud,
drink much.

He hated invasions of privacy.

He disliked loud laughs,
large cars,
long baths.

Extravagance, he thought, was over-rated.

He preferred the cool breeze,
a good nap,
a true friend.

He loved to watch snow falling slowly.

He was usually polite,
unless screaming,
or crying.

He readily shared his opinions.

He wants you to know
that he thinks this is silly.
It is ridiculous, he believes,
to make a poem of him.
It is ridiculous, he believes,
to write an animal poem.

I tell him this poem is not him at all,
how ridiculous, how absurd, I tell him.
I tell him this poem is a poem about
a woman writing a poem about
a woman writing a poem about
her cat.

He is easily pleased,
sleeps deeply,
wakes calmly,
young and
spirited
again.

poem a day

Over on patient press, I am doing a poem a day. Since I am attending to my still-ill cat and being asked to consider putting him down, I am writing some sad poetry. Do not be alarmed. Much of it is about my poor cat.

http://patientpress.blogspot.com

Many Days, Much News, None of it mine!

So CFSTeph got her lungs!! After a minor bump in the road, she is doing very well and hopefully was up and walking today!! Then, Piper got the call this morning but was not sent into surgery. Her wonderful, honest telling of the tale is HERE, and I encourage you all to read it. Reminds us that when it is not our time, it is someone else's time. Something good for me to remember.

I have been busy as a bee getting read for my reading . I have been shipping out the books, and picking out the poems to read- so exciting! I would love input on which poems to read, so if you have thoughts on that, leave them as comments, or email me at cysticgal@gmail.com . Don't have your book yet? So sad for you! You can buy it HERE. Copies are going fast! I only have 1/2 of the inventory left already!! YAY!

Here is a posting from Piper's blog that I would like to share with you, have a wonderful Sunday. -CG

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Because Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Some Real Facts about CF and Transplant:

• As of March 12, 2010 (the last published data update), there are 274 CFers on the national organ transplant waiting list. 248 of these CFers are awaiting double-lung transplants. 30 are awaiting liver transplants. (Source: Organ Procurement and Transplant Network Data)*
  
• 153 of these CFers are in the 18-34 age group. Of the remaining 121 cystics-in-waiting, 72 are older than 34 and 49 are younger than 18. (Source: Organ Procurement and Transplant Network Data)*
  
• According to the CF Patient Registry, nearly 1,600 people with CF have received lung transplants since 1991. (Source: CFF. Note: I have no idea what the end-point on this data is, although I know it to be at least 2003 or later.)
• Living lobar lung transplants (where part of a lung is taken from each of two living donors and transplanted into the recipient) is still an option for some people with CF. In 2003, 17 people with CF received their miracle from living donors. That same year, 126 CFers were blessed with the gift of life from deceased donors. (Source: CFF)
• As many as 90% of people with CF are alive 1 year after their double-lung transplants. (Source: CFF. Note: I'm again unsure of the date for this statistic, aside from the fact that it is 2003 or later. The average survival rate after transplant continues to increase as newer and more effective treatment options and transplantation techniques are developed.)
• After transplant, the new lungs will never again "have CF." People with CF who receive transplants will still have CF in their pancreas, sinuses, intestines, liver, sweat glands, and reproductive tract. (Source: CFF)
• Almost everyone can be an organ donor. There is no medical condition, age, or race that automatically excludes you from all potential organ donation (even HIV positive people can donate to others with HIV, for example). All major religions in the US support organ and tissue donation. (Source: Donate Life America Fact Sheet)
• You can register to become an organ donor in your state here: Donate Life America
• People with CF living after transplant can: run half-marathons, be professional athletes who have carried the Olympic Torch, follow their dreams as an actress, raise children, get married, become "Heroes of Hope," volunteer, have careers, finish school, write a book, make a movie, learn to surf or scuba dive, live for 20 years (and counting) after their surgery, make a difference, ski down or hike up some of the tallest mountains in the country, advocate for other patients with CF or chronic illness, or...well, you name it, we do it. (And yes, I honestly know -- or know of -- people in every single one of those categories.)
  

And, the coolest fact of the day by far...

• One of my personal blogger friends with CF received her special gift of life last Wednesday night! So make that 273 people on the waiting list!

*Note: These statistics count the total number of candidates, meaning that individuals listed at multiple centers are counted only once. Also, I am including the table below due to issues with the source link for this information. All data can be found in its original form by conducting a search on the United Network for Organ Sharing website, and is compiled by the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. The first column represents total numbers; the third column represents liver candidates; and the seventh column represents lung candidates. All other columns represent additional organs, including pancreas, kidney, heart, and intestine, as well as multi-organ transplants.

Awesome Day Today

Today I went to Red Spot Printing and though the fumes of the old printin' press were a little hard to muster before we moved into the glass office, I had a rad time picking out the pretty papers and binding and doodley dads for me book!

Then, I took my car to the awesome Tom Lyons Tires (and other automotive razzmatazz), because oh nos! I thought somethin' was wrong-o with my car-o. It was making a clunketty clunk noise when switching gears yesterday. Nothin' wrong-o, says Mr. Tom-o. (err... they looked, and saw nothing, drove it around, and say, it's okay now!)- best part: No charge. Thanks Tom Lyons!!

Then I came home and received a crazy sleep outfit from my sister which I did uploadeodoe.

Then I emailed my ars off with an author named Patrick Randolph about a book called EMPTY SHOES. This Patrick and I wanna have our poetry reading together. His book- about homelessness. Me book (and why am I Irish today), about waiting on The List- what do they have in common?

Navigating complex social systems while enduring the most challenging emotional experience of your life. Should make for a great night! Err... at least a lot to think about!!

Super. Gotta go write a poem about...oh dang, I'm not gonna tell you.

You Are My PCP: A stream of consciousness post

NEWSFLASH!
Remember those, longtime CG readers?
NEWSFLASH!

"Unto the East" now to include an introduction by Piper Beatty and cover art by Salina Marie Gomez! So exciting! Do NOT miss your opportunity to pre-order the chapbook! It's the only way to guarantee you'll get a copy of this limited edition print! Orders will be held for purchase when the book is released in March.

Click HERE. to order!

Onward . . .

About my appointment today, kinda, but really just a reflection on the idea of the PCP. This is a creative piece and not literally what happened today. But everything below has happened to me at some point in my life.

You are my PCP and despite your name you are not a drug I did in the 70s, you are my primary care physician. You must see me because you are my physician of record, and I must see you because my insurance requires it. We do not want to see each other again, we are adversaries. I regard you like an elementary school principal and I am a naughty seven year old. You regard me like a nuclear grenade and you are a soldier required to throw me, not able to decide which direction. I will walk into the room and you will cautiously shake my mother's hand, oh good, you brought your mother. You will wonder if I am a child or if I am an adult and you will remark that you are not quite sure how I was assigned to be your patient, you will smile and then ask me casually to review my "full medical history." I will stare back at you, where should I begin? I ask this literally, you think I mean figuratively, and I start to tell you how I was born in 1980. Why were you diagnosed?, you will ask me. Any surgeries?, you will ask me. You will ask me strange questions like how did I come to have this disease if neither of my parents did, if I ever worried about my cholesterol since I eat "so much fat," if I am bulimic or have a history of it. You will look at my fingers over and over again and you will hold onto my skinny wrist. I will wonder where you went to med school and how you ever finished and know that the answer is simple: barely. We will spend the better part of thirty minutes working over my history, I will watch you toggle frantically from the notes you are typing to the notes you have received about me over the year. I will remark that you must not have ever read them, and you will deny this is true. Of course I have read them, I am your physician of record. I have written all of your referrals. I am in charge of your care. Of course, I will reply. Of course you are. You are in charge of me. I will smile politely and after bringing you up to speed, after telling you about my 29 years of life, after noticing that you are about five years older than me, you will ask to listen to my chest and I will say, what for? I thought you didn't want to see me. Just kidding. And you will put your clammy little hands on my gorgeous chest under my thin cotton shirt as though it really makes it easier to hear, as though what you hear in my chest will change everything between us, and for that penance along with the drive and the talking and the two oxygen tanks I have wasted, I will walk out with a piece of paper from you that says I am allowed to live.

The Best of UnBlog: Edition 3

Here is the latest version of UnBlog, which also has suffered a lack of posting this past week or so. Ah well. Enjoy!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Transplant:

I am losing faith in my tx center. I have been on the list three months, which might not seem like a long time. But the last 2 times I have been sick, August and October, I was in a dire situation. In October, I had respiratory failure and my FEV1 is still 17%. This is me at my best, after pulmonary rehab. I am beginning to think that though supposedly I have a good status, I will have to get frighteningly sick again to get an even BETTER status, to get my lungs. I feel like, wishing I could edit out the drama in the statement, I often feel like I have lost my will to live through this whole thing. Or, at the very least, I am seeing that feeling slowly emerge from me, and though it horrifies me, it simultaneously frees me. My mind is a becoming a cesspool of firing synapses. I have so much to think about, a new passion for writing it out (not always here or on CG, but writing in general), yet I have an underlying feeling of like, why am I even doing this? I won't have the energy to follow this through, to get anybody to read it, to edit it later even. Why am I doing this, at all?

I want to get listed somewhere else but then I think, wouldn't I just be playing the numbers there instead of playing the numbers here and no matter what, the sickest gal gets the lungs, right? It doesn't REALLY matter how prepared your body is. Right now I am very much sick, and also very much in fighting form as much as I will ever be, and yet yet yet where are my lungs?

Then I worry about my attitude in a sort of Oprah's Secret kind of way (knowing, of course, that she did not invent that theory and similarly neither did the authors of The Secret itself). I wonder, if I woke up tomorrow with a better attitude would I get my lungs? Yet, I know that my first few weeks on the list I was indeed in a good spirit (mostly because of the excess CO2, steroid, and Valium, but nonetheless in great spirit). So if it was all about cosmic match of generosity to gratitude, I would have matched up then. In fact, it is more of a match of DNA strands, which I cannot control. But just in case, let me set the cosmic record straight: I would be amazingly grateful to receive lungs from a donor who is lovely and loving enough to give them to me. I have prepared my body and to the extent that I can, my soul. I have a bad attitude, but this attitude will indeed help me take care of my lungs, my body, and return to my life that, whether self-aggrandizing or not, I believe is worthwhile to other humans. I don't want to have to type, "Think of the children!" - but oh well, I already typed it.

So just to be clear, cosmos, I would be a grateful and trustworthy caretaker of a gift of life. Cranky and expressive, perhaps. But these are only two of the tools I have developed in taking care of myself, and the other self I hope to receive. And for the record, the cosmic record, I am only cranky about that which pertains to me personally in this struggle, and dearest cosmos, I think you would agree, that is fair.

Love, CG

Sunday, January 17, 2010

What I'm Learning About Relationships

I always figured (like most) that personal crisis (i.e. my illness, transplant, dying) would bring out the best in my relationships. I don't know why I thought this - if it's the way it's depicted in movies and books, if it's my Catholic upbringing and the secret belief that everyone is working from the same spiritual playbook (which of course we must not be), or what- but I must have been counting on this time in my life, more than I ever should have, to clean up the mess that is the personal relationships in my life.

As it turns out, my personal crisis of health is just bringing out the worst in my personal relationships.

Or should I say, it is polarizing my relationships. Some of the people that I feel most at ease with, that are the most appropriately supportive of me, and who I feel that I can truly count on, are my newer friends and people that outsiders (my family or older friends) would never assume I would count on. While others, I feel, are failing me.

I am lucky, blessed, thankful to have my mother. Other people do not have a mother like my mother- and even fewer get along with their mother in the way that I do. I adore my mother and we get along like peas and carrots. (My gramma always used to say that). I know my mother will be my caregiver and frankly, put up with me, in whatever way I present myself.

This post is meandering, but I like it. :) Love, CG

NOTES MAGOTES:

**Patient-Specific, Time-Varying Predictors of Post-ICU Informal Caregiver Burden: The Caregiver Outcomes After ICU Discharge Project Chest January 2010 137:88-94; published ahead of print September 17, 2009, doi:10.1378/chest.09-0795

Friday, January 15, 2010

No Number Romance Poem

[removed by CG, but included in my new chapbook!]

Ain't: a random poest* per request from KR...

Ain't ain't a word that rhymes with Christmas.
Ain't ain't a word that goes along.
Ain't ain't a word to say for holiday jingles because
Ain't ain't a word to sing in song.

I ain't sure what the new year will bring me.
I ain't sure what it'll bring to you.
I ain't sure that this poem can fit under your tree because
I ain't sure that this poem will do.

see? it only SORTA works.

Love, CG/MEP
*purposefully misspelling.

FOUR: Dinner-Time Discusssions

[removed by CG, but included in my new chapbook!]

What Are Your Poems About, Lady?

I've had a couple of emails over the last few days that ask me about the poems, so I thought I'd take a second to reflect on writing in general and why I write in the forms that I write in.

First of all, the poems are not about you. Or you or you or you or your mother or your husband or your doctor or your blog or your email or etc. My poems are only about the very words that are in there. If I wanted to just say something outright about me or my feelings or my friendships, I certainly would just try to say it, or like every other good American, I would just pine on it for days and get a migraine. :) Poems, for me, are about all sorts of experiences and ideas and feelings and observations all mish-mashed-platoonked together and zoopled out into their form. When someone asks, "Is that poem about..." my answer is usually "um . . . maybe. I guess so, well, not really . . . I don't know."

I just wrote a poem that some could read literally and think it was about my doctor and my very last doctor's appointment- not at all. It was about a general feeling I have at the doctor and general language that is battered about at the doctor, and mish-mash-platoonk, a bunch of other thoughts and feelings into a poem. But why does it matter what I thought the poem was about? It does not matter.

I think poems are just exactly what they are when the reader reads them. In theatre, I always tell the young actors, "if the audience sees it, they're right," because young actors always want to say, "you didn't get my scene, it was about . . ."- but the truth is, if the audience sees something clearly it doesn't MATTER if the actor thought they were showing something else. Same is true for poems. Whatever the reader reads, that's what the poem's about. It doesn't really matter what I think.

And, L'Chaim!
Happy Hanukkah!

More poems soon,
I am in the holiday spirit!!

And as of Friday, 2 months on the tx list. Sigh. Any day now!!

Love, CG

Three: Afternoon Assessment

[removed by CG, but included in my new chapbook!]

Two: Morning Emoticons

[This poest has been deleted but included in my chapbook, "Unto the East."]

One: Sunset Sing-Along

[I deleted this poest because it is included in my chapbook, "Unto the East." However, the very hilarious original ending is worth keeping up:

love or money in the end, plus their pride on a long
journey home. I win only one of those though
you could guess which it is - score one for me.

*****

** I do not like the end of this poem but it's kinda funny so good enough for me to post...
goodnight, and K-Poet, I hope you're happy! :) -CG**

Randomling (A Poetry Post)

Skinny Silver Time

[This poest has been deleted because it is included in my chapbook, "Into the East."]

Stream of Consciouness Is The Best Way To Write

When you write so much and so fast and you try not to stop and don't stop if you spell something wrong except for when you type sometimes it happens auto-matic-ally so usually i don't do this type of writing on a keyboard i prefer to do it with my hands so this is really an experiment and the one thing you try not to do and by you and mean i try not to use any sort of punctuation just try to get the juices flowing since it is 11 o'clock at night and though i like to start to write at ten, 11 o'clock at night will do today was hard.

well there we go.

today was hard and i went to the doctor and also i brought my friends one was human and one was pharmaceutical and both made passing the time easier except for that i was still bitchy sometimes on accident and playful sometimes on accident which really isn't that much different than the way i am in real life

like not at the doctor

it is weird that my type type typing fingers had to spell

doctor

twenty thousand times they could not get it right

write

so i went the doctor and brought my two friends t and v

t money
valium

and we had a lot of chatting and i told them i was collecting advice
i am like a tollbooth taker of advice and please would every one throw a coin in and also
don't forget that i am a monarchy
i make all the decisions
but you can't pass by without throwing a coin into the cup of
what to do about me

so i collected lots of coins today and that is a
metaphor that works so maybe i'll
write a poem like that tomorrow

and then i went home from the doctor with my full bag of coins
and stopped to make some art
or talk about hey do you want to make some art
on the way
which was good and i had my dance pants on and all
you can still wear dance pants if you have a nice ass
and an oxygen tank
it's ironic and fabulous
especially wearing pink

and i talked a little talk about hey let's make some art
and also collected a coin or two from a very nice man who says
you know the thing about art is you could always say
well i was just making some art, you know

and then i came home
called my mother
and my father
and my sister
and not yet my brother
because with all this news there was really no news to report
and he mostly has time on the weekend
my brother

he is busy collecting coins of his own ;)

Goodnight from my brain to yours,
CG

Once or Twice a Day (as needed)

(Back per reader requests!!)

Falling down the rabbit hole
Trip-drop trip-drop
Tumble down the rabbit hole
Flip-flop flip-flop.

Colored little rabbit hole
I love my home
The place where I go to know
I'm all alone.

Lovely blanket
Fuzzy socks
Sleeping well and
No one knocks.

Eating snacks
And warm meals too
Milkshakes, ice-cream
Much to do.

Lower down the rabbit hole
Slip-hop slip-hop
Reviewing all your notes and papers
Flip-flop flip-flop

Lovely little rabbit hole
I call my home
The place where people come to see
If I'm alone.

Heavy soul
And sweaty shirt
Waking often
Feeling hurt

Refusing foods
And tummy's hurt
That looks gross
Might just eat dirt

Living in the rabbit hole
Down Down Fall
Wanting to climb out again
Once and for all.

I continue to wonder what is going on with this poem. I took it down from the blog to put it into a new format, only to realize, no, I like the format but not the order, the direction of the poem but not the place where it ends up, and I think it is too long but I haven't written a good last stanza yet so I keep writing more til I know what is going on, with, this, poem.

It seems to be a silly poem, an Alice in Wonderland poem, a dark little poem. I have no idea what is up with it. A study in rabbit holes.

CG

Goodnight, CG

Breath (a poem): a work in progress for today, Wed.

[This poest has been deleted because it is included in my chapbook, "Into the East."]

I Am No Dragon Slayer

I am a dragon.
I fly through the sky though heavy with wings like steel, never tiring.
I land upon the sea perched on delicate feet, never sinking.
I plunge to the deepest depth of the sea, never gasping.
I do not need to breathe like you.
I do not need to breathe.

I am a green white pink white purple white dragon.
I float into clouds and am invisible.
I climb among trees and am a giant.
I balance on the mountain top only to witness.
I do not need to rest like you.
I do not need to rest.

I am a mythical, imaginary, remembered and forgotten dragon.
I do not fly among you, but I would.
I may not fly forever, but I could.
I will not fly in silence, though I should.
I am not defeated by you.
I am not defeated.

I am a dragon.

(c) 2009 Mary ElizaBeth Peters

Original Last 2 Stanzas

I am a green white pink white purple white dragon.
I sneak into clouds and am invisible.
I climb among trees and am a giant.
I perch at the top of a mountain only to see.
I do not need to rest like you.
I do not need to rest.

I am a mythical imaginary remembered and forgotten dragon.
I am not real, but I could be.
I am not of this time, but I would be.
I am not defeated, and I won't be.
I cannot be defeated by you.
I am a dragon.