Embracing the healing powers of poetry

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When Nancy Zink got hit in the head by an industrial strength bungee cord nearly four years ago, she went home from work thinking she just suffered whiplash.

She couldn’t sleep, but just attributed it to neck and back pain. There was no head wound. Just a bruise. But what she didn’t know was that the accident caused serious damage to her brain.

“The nature of traumatic brain injury is very confusing. I live alone. I didn’t really have anybody to observe me. And when it’s your own brain, you don’t know if you’re functioning like you should,” Zink said. “I kept thinking ‘Oh, this whiplash. I don’t sleep at night. But you know, I’m just waking up because of the neck and back pain four or five times a night.’ Then I’m thinking, ‘This is really hard. I’m forgetting everything.’ Your brain isn't working right, but you don’t know.”

Zink continued to work part time as she dealt with the pain and confusion.

After about 10 weeks, she collapsed.

“I got up in the morning to brush my teeth and I couldn’t stand at the sink,” Zink recalled. “I was laying on the sofa in a fetal position thinking, ‘oh I must have a pinched nerve in my back.’ I still wasn’t getting it.”

After meeting with different doctors, Zink discovered that she had a mild traumatic brain injury.

“As the damage went into the brain, I started developing different symptoms,” she said. “I had four seizures over the next year, and after each seizure I came home with some new problem. It was very discouraging.”

From that point, her life changed dramatically. Before the accident, Zink described herself as a skilled administrator with excellent time management skills. Somebody who always had a “to-do list” and an action plan. Those things just came naturally to her. After the effects of her brain injury took a toll, she was confined to the couch for more than a year wondering what to do next.

“It was kind of like having your brain going through a car wash,” Zink said. “Nauseous and fatigue. Unable to sleep. You were kind of in a twilight zone the whole time. You would go to bed but you wouldn’t really sleep.”

Zink needed an outlet for all those emotions rolling around in her head. She often describes it as wild horses racing in every direction. She started a journal to get some of those feeling out on paper. Pretty soon, she was writing 20 pages a day but she felt like she was getting nowhere fast.

“This is killing me. I’m so tired of writing all of this. Is there someway I can condense it?” she asked herself. “I really had no intention of sharing them, but I started writing these poems and they were so relieving. It really crystallized the emotions quickly. It really helped hasten the emotional processing.”

Since Dec. 26, 2017, Zink has written more than 100 poems. It’s the best Christmas gift she could have ever received.



“As I started experimenting with the rhymes and the tempo; just that rhythm. That rhythm is very soothing to the brain,” Zink said. “Poetry has allowed me to distill my feelings, my thoughts and my ideas, and get it out of my system. Once it’s captured on paper, you’re free from it. You’re really free.”

Zink went through her list of creative remedies from journaling and graphing to doodling. Her psychologist said she came up with her own brand of homemade therapy.

“If you can’t write it out, graph it out. If you can’t graph it out, draw it out. If you can’t draw it out, scribble it out. Just get it out because if you don’t, that’s when depression comes in,” Zink said.

“You do have to get the anger out but you can’t go poor me, poor me or you’ll be down in a hole

And so I never let myself go there,” she added. “When the poor me’s started to come in, I would sit down and write all of the things I was grateful for and I wouldn’t stop until I at least filled one page. I could hit 50 or 100 if I kept looking.”

Poetry is the one thing that helps her find inner peace.

“The theme just continues … think it, feel it, express it, work through and move on. Accept the next layer. That’s what the poetry has done.” Zink said. “It’s helped me come to terms with how difficult life can be. And I’m getting excited now because I’m an encourager by nature, so now I’m able to encourage people.”

Zink looks forward to sharing her poetry between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18, at the Battle Ground Library. She has seen the benefits of reading her poems to elderly neighbors and members of her writing club. This will be her first public reading.

“Poetry really gave me an outlet for all of my feelings, and it gave me black and white evidence of what I went through,” Zink said. “I would encourage people to try this. Your poetry doesn’t have to be fantastic in order for it to be helpful. Some of my poems are really good, some of them aren’t so good, but they are all important.”

Through poetry, this 57-year-old from Battle Ground has found her healing power.

“During my recovery, not only did I start writing more and learning poetry, I also uncovered all sorts of other things about myself. I did lots of reading and solved a lot of lifelong puzzles,” Zink said. “You don’t want to use the term, ‘I’ve been healed,’ but I feel like I have been. I’ve read about people who had very difficult experiences and come out saying it was all worth it because they grew so much. I think I’m probably one of them.”