JAMA Article

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, a peer-reviewed medical journal published my article, on performing and creating poetry with people living with dementia. Co-author Dan Kaplan, PhD and I are thrilled! It is the most in-depth description of my theory of what is happening at the neurological level, when you are performing poetry using call and response.

The paper is a call for further research and ends with, “Reciting poetry is unlikely to change the progression of dementia, but it can help change the narrative of how unaffected individuals and society perceive dementia. Changing that narrative to include examples of creativity and moments of joy, and the tantalizing possibility that it can positively affect the consolidation of new short-term memories into long-term memories, alters the perception of dementia from an experience defined by isolation and lost personhood to one of social vitality and enduring personhood. This shift may help combat the stigma of memory loss and promote more humane and effective care environments and therapeutic strategies for working with these patients.

Here is a link to the JAMA essayJ

Macaroni Tapes

The Macaroni Tapes

Back in 2004 in the waning days of telemarketing, I undertook a project that changed my life. For too long I had expressed my frustration with the “industry.” No More! Each time an unsuspecting telemarketer called I would befriend them and ask for the recipe for macaroni and cheese.

After the first call I would offer to read them the poem, “Elbow Macaroni,” by Don McIver and began to improvise with the poem blending it into the conversation. The telemarketers were surprisingly open to hearing the poem. Only one got really angry and threatened to switch my service.

The friends that I made that week and the circle of humanity I entered still leaves me glowing. Not to mention the delicious bowls of mac and cheese I have eaten.

Since the advent of the “National Do Not Call Registry.” there has been a decline in the endless calls at dinnertime. It almost makes me miss them.

On another note did you know that the first American recipe for Macaroni and Cheese is not credited to Thomas Jefferson’s aunt?

Macaroni Tapes on Soundcloud

RIP Richard Taylor...Hello My Name is Richard

Like so many people I considered Dr. Richard Taylor a friend. Richard died on June 25th, 2015. He was the most passionate and outspoken advocate for people living with memory loss. This treasured photo was taken after he testified at the Dementia Arts on Capitol Hill. The project included an exhibit of people living with memory loss participating in the arts in the The Russell Senate Office Building and a panel briefing, which was sponsored by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico.

The speakers in addition to Richard and the Senator among others included: Rocco Landesman, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts; the Guest Poet, Stuart Hall who read poems about living with memory loss; Sunil Iyengar, Director of Research and Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts; Dr. Anne Basting, Executive Director, Center on Age & Community and founder, TimeSlips; Maria Genné, founder, KAIROS ALIVE! and Margery Pabst, Executive Director, Pabst Charitable Foundation for the Arts and author of “Enrich Your Caregiving Journey."

All of them were well spoken and articulate about memory loss and care-giving but it was Richard who brought the issue to life and who made the standing room crowd of Senate staffers and the public laugh and cry. So many of the people who attended the panel briefing on the state of Dementia Arts Research came up after the event and talked about how moving Richard's talk was.

I first met Richard at an Alzheimer's Foundation of America Conference in Dallas in 2006. It was the first time I had attended a conference on Alzheimer's where a person living with memory loss had spoken at the conference. Richard always pushed for including that voice. When I began organizing Dementia Arts on Capitol Hill, it was my great hope he would be able to attend and I organized the event around him.

When I first contacted Richard about speaking at the event, he knew I would need sponsors and he said, "Are you sure you want me? You know I can be considered quite controversial." As Richard predicted, when I was talking with a marketing person for one of the major Alzheimer's advocacy groups, the person asked about the speakers at the event and said, "You know Richard Taylor called me an angel of death." We talked it through and agreed that if we were living with memory loss, we might also have Richard's sense of urgency and frustration, at how most if not all the resources and funds raised around Alzheimer's, are put to use for a distant cure and not towards helping people today.

In the end, the Alzheimer's advocacy group, did help us to promote and get the word out about the event. I believe that although is was difficult, that it helped the person to talk out how it felt to be described that way. The conversation was frank and honest and Richard loved hearing the story.

Below are a few of the remarks he made that day, shaped into a poem. Like so many people I am missing my friend Richard today, but take heart in his words and send to his family and all his friends thoughts of love.

Hello, My Name is Richard Taylor

It’s not complicated
understanding who I am
once you get past the stigmas.
I am Richard,
a whole human being
living with the disabilities
associated with the symptoms
of Dementia.

Please do not give up on me
when I do not voluntarily
communicate as you.

Assume the best
for me, and in me.
Speak to me
as if I am all here.

It is a moral imperative
to support those who
for no reason
of their own cannot
meet their own needs.

A clean bed, a warm meal,
surroundings that mimic a hotel-
these are the basic needs.

It is the higher level needs
you all best support.

The needs that bring a smile
to my face, a bounce to my step,
and a handshake, a hug, or a kiss
for you when you leave.

Hello, my name is Richard Taylor;
I am a retired psychologist
living with the symptoms
and diagnosis of Dementia,
probably of the Alzheimer’s type.

Why is it everyone
is so amazed when we
dance, sing, and write?
Could it be we have been
hitherto written off as being fully human?

As our symptoms increase
do our needs for happiness,
connectedness, friendship,
self-esteem decrease?
Of course not.

I will be a complete
human being until
about two minutes
after I have drawn
my last breath.

Read More of Richard's Work Here.

APP in Wisconsin

This event was made possible by Bader Philanthropies’ funding, formerly the Helen Bader Foundation and a leader in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease throughout Wisconsin. Big thanks to all the students at Altoona High School and their wonderful teacher Angela Roloson. Thanks also to Ella Shaw teacher extraordinaire, who organized the events and to her students at Durand High School.

Poetry for Life

Minds like locked boxes
Presented in the round
I used language like keys
And love is what I found
Love for the now and for history
And the love was unlocked
With the key of poetry
- Jalen Bell

So excited with get to work with talented Jalen Bell, the 2014 Poetry Out Loud, Arkansas State Champion and his family! He wrote that wonderful poem after our poetry session on Tuesday performing and creating poems with the people at Innisfree Senior Living Community in Rogers.

His younger sister Jaden also participated in the session as did his father Donovan. Jaden is preparing to take part in the National Spelling Bee. When I asked about her favorite word to spell, she said Pfeffernuesse, the German Christmas cookie. As soon as she replied one of the men in the group jumped up, went to his room and brought back a Pfeffernuesse! It was delicious!

Yes we also read the patron poem of the home, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." The event was hosted by the Arkansas Arts Council. Big thanks to Cynthia Haas the Arts in Education Program Manager.

Poetry for Life is a pilot project to bring students who are participating in Poetry Out Loud to assisted living, adult day care and senior centers to perform and create poems with the elders.

Dementia Arts Research Article in the Washington Post

Fredrick Kunkle of the Washington Post asks, "Can Alzheimer’s be treated with the arts? Researchers aim to determine the answer."

Click here to read the full article.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Institutes of Health and others are pushing for more answers. At Birmingham Green, researchers from George Mason University are conducting a federally subsidized study to examine the impact of the arts on the emotional and cognitive health of older adults.

“There still needs to be a lot of work done,” said Sunil Iyengar, who heads the Office of Research and Analysis at the NEA. Iyengar said research into the effect of art on people with cognitive impairments has suffered from a lack of rigor.

Too many studies lacked proper controls, involved samples that were too small, and were poorly defined. They also may have been looking for the wrong thing, Iyengar said. While searching for hard evidence of biological improvements in memory or cognition, many also overlooked measurable improvements in the mood and well-being of people with Alzheimer’s, and their caregivers, too.

I am thrilled to be included in the article:

“But outside of these things is sheer joy,” said Gary Glazner, founder and executive director of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. Glazner said he was working at an adult day-care center in Northern California and searching for ways to connect with people with Alzheimer’s disease when he discovered the power of poetry to reach people with cognitive impairment.

Having studied poetry in college, Glazner shared Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Arrow and The Song” with a resident and from the first line — “I shot an arrow” — hit the mark. Glazner uses poetry, particularly beloved classics learned by older adults, in call-and-response with older people and guides them in writing poems. Jump-rope rhymes, even military cadences, can evoke responses from people with cognitive impairment that engage them, he said.

Memory Arts Cafe

Wednesday, December 10th, 6pm
New York Memory Center
199 14th Street, (At 4th Ave.) Take the R to Prospect Avenue

This special holiday season Memory Arts Café will highlight
the artists of the New York Memory Center. Meet new friends and greet
old ones as we ring in the holidays with laughter, toasts and cheer.
Poet-in-Residence Gary Glazner will host the evenings entertainment.

NEA Audio Piece on the APP

Adam Kampe, Media Producer at National Endowment for the Arts has produced an excellent audio piece on the APP. He interviews Professor Kate de Medeiros of the University of Miami-Ohio on using poetry with people living with memory loss. To listen to the piece click here: NEA Audio Piece on the APP

Australia Radio Interview

Thrilled to be interviewed on by Melanie Tait on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio!
Click here to hear the broadcast
Brought back all the wonderful poems from last year's visit to give a workshop at the Arts and Health Australia conference including "I love a sunburnt country," by Dorothea Mackellar. The photo is from a group I worked with at an assisted living center in Sydney.
More info on the 2014 International Arts and Health Conference click here. Big shout out to Margret Meagher the conference organizer and founding executive director of Arts and Health Australia for bringing me out last year. Oh give me a home among the gum trees with lots of plum trees, a sheep or two and a kangaroo.
My Country
by Dorothea Mackellar (1885 - 1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dementia Arts Conference: Celebrating Creativity in Elder Care

The New Mexico History Museum joins the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project to share techniques for reaching people with memory illnesses through literature, performance and visual art and museum exhibits on Saturday, October 25, 9am to 4pm, New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Avenue Santa Fe, NM 87501. Registration fee of $35 includes light breakfast and lunch. Continuing Education Units will be available.

To register or for more information call 505-577-2250 or go to: www.dementiaarts.com

Workshops will be led by: Gary Glazner, Alzheimer’s Poetry Project; Alysha Shaw, Lifesongs℠; Jane Tygesson, Discover Your Story; Ruth Dennis, Vista Living; and Jytte Lokvig, Alzheimer’s Café. Poet Stuart Hall will be the featured guest artist.

Partnering Organizations: Alzheimer’s Association, New Mexico Chapter; Alzheimer’s Café; Alzheimer’s Poetry Project; Discover Your Story, IAIA MFA Creative Writing Program; Institute of Dementia Education & Art; Life Songs; New Mexico Literary Arts; Southwestern College, and Vista Living Communities. The conference is in support the New Mexico Alzheimer’s and Related Dementia State Plan, with the endorsement of: the officeof Governor Susana Martinez New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Partially funded by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission; Santa Fe Community Foundation; McCune Foundation; National Endownent for the Arts; New Mexico Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

www.dementiaarts.com

Celebration of Creativity

New York Memory Center, Alzheimer’s Poetry Project and the
Brooklyn Public Library Present:
A Celebration of Creativity
A Memory Arts Café event, featuring singer Hannah Reimann

Saturday, June 28th, 10:30 am to 12:30pm, Brooklyn Public Library Dweck Center 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. For info: call (718) 499-7701 or visit alzpoetry.com

Memory Arts Café is series of free art events for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public and is co-produced by New York Memory Center and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. The series includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists.

The Celebration of Creativity with feature guest artist, singer and actor Hannah Reimann and be hosted by poet Gary Glazner. The highlight of the day will be the artists leading the audience, in the creation and performance of an exciting new work combining music and poetry.

Hannah Reimann has performed at Lincoln Center, the Grand Canyon Music Festival, and mostly recently performing the music of Joni Mitchell at the Cutting Room. Jim Brenholts for All Music writes, “Hannah’s range allows her to sing love songs, simple ballads, melancholy blues, and torch songs with equal gusto. Her lyrics are complex and simple; they are heartfelt and liberating.” She has collaborated with violist Paul Coletti performing the music of Argentine Astor Piazzolla. As a film actor, Reimann has appeared in over 20 independent films including the award-winning "The Wounded & the Slain" and “Things I Don’t Understand.” Her original music has been featured on CNN.

The event is co-produced by New York Memory Center, Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, and the Brooklyn Public Library.

Memory Arts Cafe in Prospect Park

Picnic in the Park

Special Guest: United States Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey

Please join for a Memory Arts Cafe field trip to Prospect Park. We will visit the Boathouse, watch swans glide on a lake and see a waterfall. We will take in the park’s most famous tree the “Camperdown Elm,” which was planted in Brooklyn in 1872. It’s one of only a few surviving trees in the world grafted from an elm on the estate of the Earl of Camperdown in Scotland.

Poet Gary Glazner will lead the group in the creation of a new poem inspired by the nature of Prospect Park. Yes! It will be an easy walk in the park.

In 2012, Trethewey was named as 19th U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress. Trethewey plans to travel to cities and towns across the country meeting with the general public to seek out the many ways poetry lives in American communities and report on her discoveries in a regular feature on the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series.

Memory Arts Cafe at Brooklyn Museum

Jesse Neuman and Stine Moen of Rhythm Break Cares Dance Company celebrate the Memory Arts Cafe one year anniversary at at the Brooklyn Museum. Photo credit Carole Debeer.

Memory Arts Cafe at Brooklyn Museum

MEMORY ARTS CAFÉ CELEBRATION
at the Brooklyn Museum
Saturday, May 25, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor
Free

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers, and the general public are all invited to join this celebration of the Memory Arts Café, featuring jazz trumpeter Jesse Neuman and the Rhythm Break Cares Dance Company with Stine Moen and Hooba. Coproduced by the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, the Brooklyn Museum, and the New York Memory Center. Hosted by Gary Glazner of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. Reception to follow. Email: access@brooklynmuseum.org for more information. The Brooklyn Museum also presents Brooklyn Afternoons: Art and Conversation for Individuals with Memory Loss, a free monthly program that invites individuals with memory loss and their caregivers to explore the Museum’s collections together. Information at access@brooklynmuseum.org

The New York Memory Center is a Brooklynbased agency providing services to adults with cognitive, physical, and emotional limitations to help them enjoy life beyond diagnosis of memory loss. http://nymemorycenter.org/

The Memory Arts Café is sponsored, in part, by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, and the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Photo by Jonathan Dorado