They all had something in common, though: they all recently found out they had diabetes. And Daniels, an English professor at Vanderbilt University, was asking them to write a poem to describe their feelings about it.

 

“You should say something that is true, whatever it is,” she told the children.

The children were all patients participating in an orientation session with the Vanderbilt Eskind Diabetes Clinic’s pediatric diabetes program. Daniels had come to lead a poetry workshop for the children as part of a special project funded by a Tennessee Arts Commission grant.

 

Janet Cross, director of child life services, had the idea of using the grant to establish a workshop for the pediatric diabetes patients. She and Donna Glassford, director of cultural enrichment for Vanderbilt Medical Center, contacted Daniels with the plan and asked her to help these children put their feelings into words—and perhaps gain a little more control over them.

 

Daniels told the children that she knew they were experiencing something new, something that they might still be grappling with. She told them to close their eyes and think of the very first thing about having diabetes that came to mind.

 

“And I said, ‘This is not school…nobody’s going to grade you,’” she said. “There are no rules.”

Some of the children were scared. Some were angry. Some were bewildered. Some were curious. They all knew their lives had changed, and they all had something to say about it.

 

One girl who told Daniels that she’d written poetry before immediately picked up her pen and began to write. The others took a little longer to get started. They stared up at a list of diabetes-related words that Daniels had written on the board---sugar, carbs, blood, needles—and then stared dubiously down at the paper in front of them. Slowly, in fits and starts, the words poured out.

 

Sean, 5, wrote this poem: “I like the shots/And I like the insulin/It goes in/My body/And makes me/Feel well.”

Meanwhile, Paige, 16, ended her poem with these stanzas: “And on my own, back in school/With even more to learn than before./Pricks and shots at lunch./ People stare./My friends ask everything: how, why, what?/Diabetes has changed me/So much and yet so little./I’m thankful for everything now./For my doctors and my friends, For Mom and Dad and Daniel./Now I know everything will be all right.”

 

“You’re trying to get them in touch with the specifics, the concrete details, the day-to-day experiences,” Daniels explained later. “Writing about experiences that are troubling or painful or upsetting in some way can be helpful to the individual…in coming to terms with it.”

“Writing is a good place and a safe place to do that,” she added.

 

Many of the children chose to write about the diabetes kit full of supplies that they now have to tote with them everywhere they go. It’s a concrete symbol that shows their lives have changed. They now have to be more organized, because their lives could depend on having the supplies they need at hand. Some of the children were resigned to this task, while others still hadn’t quite come to terms with it yet. It may still take them awhile, poem or not.

 

After every child had a chance to write a poem, the group reconvened with the family members. The children read their poems aloud. Tears trickled down a few faces, mostly parents. Everyone agreed that it was an amazing experience.

“It was very moving for me, too,” Daniels said.

Even some of the children’s siblings wrote poems as part of the workshop.  

After the workshop, the Department of Cultural Education published all the poems in an anthology titled Shots & Sugar, Sugar & Shots. Click here to view Shots & Sugar, Sugar & Shots and read the children's poems.