One of the highlights of the Alzheimer's Poetry Day held at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin on August 2nd, 2011 was having local poet John Fons participate. He has been writing poetry on his experience with his mother living with dementia.
John Fons is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Jane. He worked with his father, the late Lloyd C. Fons, in oil and gas exploration before graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary. John’s mother Venita and his father celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary in Chicago where once they recognized each other at the intersection of State and Randolph after a childhood friendship and subsequent separation for many years. They raised four children. Venita is now diagnosed late Alzheimer’s and resides at a memory care unit in California. She remains as she has always been, a kind and loving soul intent on finding the best within herself and others.
Here are two of John's poems:
Visitors
Who are
These people
Who come
To say
Hello?
They never
Leave.
Where do
They think
They go?
My son,
My daughter,
My niece,
My nephew
Always within
My heart.
My sister,
My brother,
My closest
Friends have
Lived within
Since love
First made
Us one.
I keep
Them here.
They cannot
Leave.
Where do
They think
They go?
Letters
These are
Written to me.
I love these
Letters written
From loved
Ones.
See them
Where I
Keep them.
Here is
One from
My son.
Another from
My daughter.
I have a
Few from
My friends
At church.
Here’s another.
Alzheimer's Poetry Day- Madison was partially funded by the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, the Helen Bader Foundation and the Madison Arts Commission.
