I Hold You Still?: Poet Micheal O’Siadhail Explains Parkinson’s Disease in Sonnets

Send us Fan MailThe internationally-acclaimed poet, Micheal O’Siadhail (pronounced, Meehawl O’Sheel), joins us to talk about One Crimson Thread, a memoir of 150 sonnets he wrote about the last two years of his late wife’s life with Parkinson’s disease. O’Siadhail reads four sonnets from the book relating directly to clinical scenarios familiar to health care providers, caregivers, and family members, and to the trajectory Parkinson’s disease exhibits. We discuss the insights they offer that extend beyond those of conventional biomedical sources. O’Siadhail also tells us how the forms of poems contribute to their meaning, and offers thoughts on what drives fear of poetry among many, a fear that could needlessly result in missing the 150 opportunities in the book to better appreciate the array of issues confronting people with Parkinson’s disease than is otherwise possible. Citation:Micheal O’Siadhail. One Crimson Thread. Waco, Tx; Baylor University Press, 2015.Links:The sonnets read are reproduced and issues discussed during the podcast are summarized in Russell Teagarden’s companion blog piece in According to the Arts.Micheal O’Siadhail’s website is here.Baylor University Press details for One Crimson Thread are here.Reminders:Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: [email protected] for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts.Executive producer:  Anne Bentley