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Category: Interview

Aphasia and the Arts: Poetry

Happy National Aphasia Awareness Month to you all! In honor of National Aphasia Awareness Month, and in recognition of the upcoming, All About MossRehab Through the Arts, we are highlighting people with aphasia who are making a contribution to their communities through the arts.

We’re thrilled for our first feature to highlight, Mark Harder, poet, innovator, and creator of Poems in Speech! Thank you, Mark, for sharing your words with us.

  • Were you always interested in poetry? 
    No – I used to write instructions, lessons, and grants for plastering apprentices, journey workers, and apprentice teachers.
  • What inspired you to write your first poem? 
    Early on my stroke, I was not able to express my frustration, sadness, pain, and loss. I couldn’t tell my wife, children, friends, coworkers, and the doctors what was the symptoms. Then I could finally describe the pain on my right side, (like sunburn) and it was figuratively but so liberating too. My first poem was titled, “To Me, This Is Aphasia”.
  • What is important to you about poetry? 
    I feel that my circumstances have given me a lot of thought (materials). I use poetry as therapy in my soul. I am practicing on my speech, writing, reading, vocabulary, tempo, and creativity.
  • What prompted you to start your virtual poetry group? 
    Before the pandemic, I would go to the MossRehab Aphasia Conversation Group, aphasia support groups, and research – then everything stopped. Slowly, the support groups resumed virtually. But in August, there was another break in sessions. I purchased a Zoom account and invited the Aphasia Conversation Group to continue by ourselves. I think is helped. Then I thought about sharing my passion of recovery through poetry.
  • What’s your favorite thing about the virtual poetry group? 
    I enjoy the camaraderie of struggles and succeed – and just being together.
  • How can people find out more about your virtual poetry group? 
    I post information on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100016348414229,  and Instagram, @poems_in_speech. I created a website named poemsinspeech.com and you can email me for information, mark@poemsinspeech.com.
  • What advice would you give people with aphasia who want to start writing (or reading) poetry? 
    It took months to just say the alphabet and the numbers. But I try to write the things that I was saying too, like – “I want to get better.”, “I’m done.”, and “I locked the door.” I couldn’t rhyme. Try to express yourself in words, emotions, and logic.

Trust (by Mark Harder)

I don’t trust my lips.

I don’t trust my tongue.

I don’t trust my breathe.

I don’t trust my whole mouth.

I don’t trust the words I see.

I don’t trust the voices I hear.

I don’t trust my finger to point.

I don’t trust my head to nod.

I do trust the sun will rise.

I do trust the flowers will bloom.

I do trust the tide will ebb and flow.

I do trust the moon will wobble.

I do trust that the pain will pass.

I do trust that things will change.

I do trust the me inside.

I do trust that God is next to me.

Tessa Hart, PhD

Q & A with Tessa Hart, PhD

Tessa Hart, PhD

Tessa Hart, PhD

Tessa Hart, PhD, is director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Laboratory and principal investigator of the Moss Traumatic Brain Injury Model System at Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute. She joined the MRRI faculty as a full-time researcher in 1999, after spending more than 15 years treating and developing programs for people with acquired brain injury and their families in inpatient, outpatient, and residential settings.

Dr. Hart is also research professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Jefferson Medical College and a member of the adjunct professional staff of Einstein Healthcare Network.

What is the current focus of your research?

Tessa Hart: I do research in traumatic brain injury (TBI). I’m especially interested in long-term, severe TBI, and in problems in the psychosocial area. Some of my research has to do with finding out more about the long-term problems that affect people with TBI and their families. But my main interest is in developing and testing new treatments to help people deal with those problems, especially problems of emotional self-regulation.

Which aspects of your work are you most excited about right now, and why?

TH: Right now I’m most excited about my treatment studies because of the feedback that we get from the patients who participate. Some of them have said things like, “It’s changed my life” or “I have my life back now.”

I’m doing one study in which patients with depression or anxiety, or both, develop action plans that will expose them to more rewarding experiences. Then they develop reminders about those action plans that we send in the form of text messages. It’s about remembering to do simple things, little things that give them pleasure. For example, one lady decided she was going to walk to the grocery store instead of driving. She lost some weight through walking more, and she met some of her neighbors for the first time. She reminded herself to pick up baking supplies at the store, and she therefore did more Christmas baking, which made her family happy and gave her a lot of satisfaction.

Some of the plans are designed to overcome avoidance of desired activities. For example, one fellow wanted to work out at the gym but felt self-conscious. One of his messages said something like, “When I’m at the gym, I’ll remember that no one is looking at me.” It worked for him.

What is one of the problems or barriers to success that you’re trying to work past at the moment?

TH: It’s hard to find people to recruit into some studies. It can take a tremendous amount of time and resources to find people to engage in research.

But the perennial barrier is getting funding for research, because it’s so competitive. We go after all kinds of grants, large and small. The small grants help us get preliminary data to support the larger grants.

What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

TH: I love to travel. That’s one of the best perks of the job, that you get to attend meetings around the country and overseas. I like to cook. I’m a jogger—that’s something I really enjoy and I’ve done it my entire life.

What might surprise us about you?

TH: I also love to write, and I wrote two children’s books with my husband, Frank Sergi, about a creature called the Snarth, who I invented when I was 7 years old. The first one got published, but then the publisher went out of business and the second one is still sitting in a drawer. It was fun while it lasted, though!