Poets in medicine

New Zealand poet and doctor Glenn Colquhoun.

Examination of the mental condition of a person who seems to have dementia might seem like an unpromising subject, but I think there's something beautiful in Glenn Colquhoun's poem A mini mental status examination. Here's the first verse:


She told me that it was summer and that we were in the south of France.
The night before we had heard a man sing beautifully on the street 
Her father was important and young men had always sought her.
I was no exception.
She complained of the heat. 


Extract from my article on Poets in Medicine, originally published in the Irish Medical News, 2009. Read the full article here....