Poetry anthology To Mind Your Life was launched on International Nurses Day 2021 after almost a year in the making.
You can order your own copy from the Scottish Poetry Library for £6.99:
Click here to order
The anthology will be gifted to every graduating nurse and midwife in Scotland for the next three years and is intended to provide them with support, comfort and inspiration during their first year in the job. At a time of unprecedented pressure on nurses and midwives, the global coronavirus pandemic has concentrated many pre-existing issues facing health professionals. The poems explore the meaning of nursing, midwifery and compassion in order to promote the newly qualified nurses and midwives’ self-care and wellbeing.
As editors Samuel Tongue, Dr Marti Balaam, Prof Clare Cable, Tasha Prigmore, Dr Jenny Paterson, Dr Kath MacDonald, and Prof John Gillies write in their introduction:
We believe that engaging with poetry gives us a place of emotional respite and release; it can gently comfort and encourage us and can resonate with many of the human experiences and dilemmas we all face. So carry this book in your pocket, keep it by your side, and let the voices of others inspire you.
Twinning arts and health, To Mind Your Life is informed by nursing’s long history of working with the humanities. This anthology of poems is modelled on Tools of the Trade: Poems for New Doctors and inspired by the ‘Nursing Now’ global campaign and the ‘Year of the Nurse and the Midwife’. QNIS were delighted to support the production of the anthology alongside, the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), and the Medical and Dental Defence Union Scotland (MDDUS).
Watch the promotional video
With quotes from Michael Rosen, Emilia Clarke and Susan Boyle
Both the Herald and the Nursing Standard have published articles about the anthology.
Read the Herald article
Read the Nursing Standard article
