I am the most musical member of an unmusical family, which is to say that I can carry a tune, barely.
Still, besting even a weak field emboldens me. I howl the harmony line of Simon and Garfunkel songs in the minivan. I belt out Adon Olam at the synagogue.
Not long ago, I even sang a few bars to my medical colleagues.
About fifteen of us meet once a month for dinner in the hospital basement in a poorly lit room across the steamy hall from the cafeteria. We discuss prose and poetry related to illness. The hour, the location, and the subject all lend an air of the illicit. I am the leader, by virtue of having studied literature and written some nonfiction—but here, too, I sometimes feel that I am merely the least tone deaf.
This is most true when we discuss poetry.
We were reading Ellen Bryant Voigt’s collection Kyrie, about the influenza pandemic of 1918. The poems meander from one perspective to another: a child’s, a physician’s, a soldier’s. Sometimes you can’t really tell who’s talking or even what they’re talking about. This made our group uncomfortable. We’re nurses, doctors, and social workers. We’re people who like to know the answer.
I said: “Just think of it as music!” Uncertain looks.
I had an idea. I sang the last song on the first side of Sgt. Pepper:
For the benefit of Mr. Kite
There will be a show tonight
On the trampoline.
The Hendersons will all be there
Late of Pablo Fanque’s fair
What a scene!
Over men and horses
Lastly through a hogshead
Of real fire…
I asked: “Does anyone really know what that means?”
More uncertain looks.
I asked: “But doesn’t everyone really know what that means?”
Vigorous nods all around. Now we were in familiar territory.
Every clinician understands what it is to know without knowing—to skitter confidently across the surface of an impression. So often a medical decision feels less like solving a math problem and more like recognizing a melody: This one needs to be in the hospital, that one can go home; This lump seems benign, that one is cancer.
We had an excellent discussion. But later that night the old insecurities kicked in. I needed more information. I looked up the origin of “Mr. Kite.”
I'd heard the song thousands of times since June 1967, when Sgt. Pepper was first released--45 years ago this month. Age 10. In my father’s new, private “den,” the second floor bedroom vacated by my older brother in his flight to the attic, on a Hi Fi built into the cabinetry. Those first swirling chords perfectly matched my feeling that I, like my brother, had advanced into forbidden territory.
Dum dum dee dum dee dum dee DUM. DUM.
I’d never known about the old circus poster that John Lennon found in an antique shop; that there really was a Mr. Kite, a hogshead, a Pablo Fanque who had a fair; that the real title of the song—listed right on the LP jacket I’d studied endlessly—is “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
None of what I learned told me a thing.
I am planning next year’s readings for our group.
More poetry.
Still, besting even a weak field emboldens me. I howl the harmony line of Simon and Garfunkel songs in the minivan. I belt out Adon Olam at the synagogue.
Not long ago, I even sang a few bars to my medical colleagues.
About fifteen of us meet once a month for dinner in the hospital basement in a poorly lit room across the steamy hall from the cafeteria. We discuss prose and poetry related to illness. The hour, the location, and the subject all lend an air of the illicit. I am the leader, by virtue of having studied literature and written some nonfiction—but here, too, I sometimes feel that I am merely the least tone deaf.
This is most true when we discuss poetry.
We were reading Ellen Bryant Voigt’s collection Kyrie, about the influenza pandemic of 1918. The poems meander from one perspective to another: a child’s, a physician’s, a soldier’s. Sometimes you can’t really tell who’s talking or even what they’re talking about. This made our group uncomfortable. We’re nurses, doctors, and social workers. We’re people who like to know the answer.
I said: “Just think of it as music!” Uncertain looks.
I had an idea. I sang the last song on the first side of Sgt. Pepper:
For the benefit of Mr. Kite
There will be a show tonight
On the trampoline.
The Hendersons will all be there
Late of Pablo Fanque’s fair
What a scene!
Over men and horses
Lastly through a hogshead
Of real fire…
I asked: “Does anyone really know what that means?”
More uncertain looks.
I asked: “But doesn’t everyone really know what that means?”
Vigorous nods all around. Now we were in familiar territory.
Every clinician understands what it is to know without knowing—to skitter confidently across the surface of an impression. So often a medical decision feels less like solving a math problem and more like recognizing a melody: This one needs to be in the hospital, that one can go home; This lump seems benign, that one is cancer.
We had an excellent discussion. But later that night the old insecurities kicked in. I needed more information. I looked up the origin of “Mr. Kite.”
I'd heard the song thousands of times since June 1967, when Sgt. Pepper was first released--45 years ago this month. Age 10. In my father’s new, private “den,” the second floor bedroom vacated by my older brother in his flight to the attic, on a Hi Fi built into the cabinetry. Those first swirling chords perfectly matched my feeling that I, like my brother, had advanced into forbidden territory.
Dum dum dee dum dee dum dee DUM. DUM.
I’d never known about the old circus poster that John Lennon found in an antique shop; that there really was a Mr. Kite, a hogshead, a Pablo Fanque who had a fair; that the real title of the song—listed right on the LP jacket I’d studied endlessly—is “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
None of what I learned told me a thing.
I am planning next year’s readings for our group.
More poetry.
Suzanne Koven practices primary care internal medicine in Boston and writes the monthly column "In Practice" for the Boston Globe. Her work has also appeared at TheRumpus.net and other publications. Visit her on the web at www.suzannekovenmd.com and email her at inpracticemd@gmail.com.
