"I wandered lonely as a cloud": Lyric Selfhood and Alzheimer's

Susan Schultz has written a wonderful review of Sparking Memories: The Alzheimer's Poetry Project Anthology on her Tinfish Editor's Blog.

Schultz takes a paper by, Steven Sabat and Rom Harre, "The Construction and Deconstruction of Self in Alzheimer's Disease," as her starting place to look at the "I" in romantic poetry and how that relates to self of the person living with dementia.

I find Schultz' take on the poems we use in the APP fascinating and I am thankful to have this new way to look at the work we are doing through the concept of Deconstruction.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Dementia Blog

Check out Susan Schultz' Dementia Blog.

Schultz writes "The Dementia Blog was written over the course of six months during the worst of my mother’s dementia. In August 2006 she was still in her home; by January 2007 she was settled into an Alzheimer’s home. The blog, like all blogs, moves backwards from the present into the past. Because it moves back, the reader has no sense of cause and effect and often does not recognize what has happened until reading further back. This form struck me as appropriate to a meditation on memory and self-loss."

It is a fascinating collections of images, including these poignant lines,"— The woman who is not wearing shoes comes up behind me and places her hands on my shoulders. She squeezes them. I turn and ask her name. She does not know."

Perhaps other people will or have used Schultz' to record their experiences in being a caregiver.