Her patients know that Brenda Butka, director of pulmonary rehabilitation at Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, is interested in the rhythm of their breaths. However, they may be surprised to learn she has a deep affinity and talent for poetic rhythms, too.
Butka, a poet since childhood, brings art to her practice of medicine by truly seeing her patients. Recently, her poem “Do Not Resuscitate” inspired medical students to create signs about their patients’ personal lives to display over their beds, instead of just managing the diseases listed on their medical charts.
Butka, along with Vanderbilt medical students Irene Mathieu and Kenneth Taubenslag, will read their poetry at 7 p.m. Friday, June 27, as part of Lyrical Brew, a monthly evening of poetry sponsored by Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt.
While medicine and poetry may seem completely opposite in discipline, a number of renowned poets—including John Keats, William Carlos Williams and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.—also were trained physicians.
Butka has had work published in The Threepenny Review, The Cortland Review, POEM, Slant, 2nd & Church, Tabula Rasa, Alimentum and The Florida Review, among others. Her work has been included in TicToc and On Being a Doctor.
Mathieu studied International Relations at the College of William and Mary and completed a Fulbright Fellowship in the Dominican Republic prior to medical school. Her poetry, prose and photography have been featured in The Caribbean Writer, Lindenwood Review, Muzzle Magazine, qarrtsiluni, Extract(s), So to Speak, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Love Insha’Allah, Los Angeles Review and Callaloo Journal, among other publications. She has been a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Callaloo Fellow. Her poetry chapbook The Galaxy of Origins is forthcoming this year from Dancing Girl Press.
Before medical school, Taubenslag completed his undergraduate degree in English at Williams College, where he studied creative writing with National Book Award finalist Lawrence Raab, before going on to read for a master of philosophy degree in English studies at Cambridge University.
Lyrical Brew is held the fourth Friday of each month and has featured acclaimed local talent, such as Bill Brown, Kendra DeColo, Jeff Hardin, T.J. Jarrett, Gary McDowell and Stephanie Pruitt, since its inception in February 2014. For more information, contact host Ciona Rouse at cionarouse@gmail.com.
Contact: John Lasiter, (615) 414-4870
john.lasiter@vanderbilt.edu