In The Republic, Plato claimed poets should be banned from the debate of issues within his idealized society because poetry, he said, “inflames the passions.” Yet, chances are, if you remember a piece of writing, it’s because it moved you. Many devices writers use are designed to form that deeper connection. Today, empathy is recognized as a powerful aid to solving the problems in healthcare. If those problems seem beyond the impact of a single literary work, recall how Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle led to reforming the meatpacking industry to protect us from contaminated meat and, eventually, to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Or how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped in creating the outrage over slavery that led to the Civil War which, however rueful and bloody, served a just cause. More recent events suggest that politics is inescapable and we must stand up for our beliefs with every persuasive word we can muster. Call the use of healthcare narratives—not part of a civil war but a humanized use of civility to end bloodshed—the needless deaths attributed to preventable medical error.

Poets can and should join other fronts where concerned professionals are working to reduce medical harm, eliminate its causes, and address—with honesty and a commitment to justice—the toll it takes on individual lives. As examples, please read John Davis’ dramatic poem in this issue, The Striker Talks with the Doctor, followed by Laurie Kolp’s rhythmical Bedside Manner. These are illustrations of what nurturing care does, and does not, look like. Or read Suellen Wedmore’s Alzheimer’s and Reverse Cheating, which provide an intimate view of the effects of memory loss on a patient and her adult daughter. As you read these and the other stirring poems in this inaugural issue, I hope you will be reassured, as I was, that in facing our mortality and all the ills flesh is heir to, we are not alone. Nor should we forget that the original mission of medicine—to ease human suffering—is also the mission of healthcare reform and, I’d argue, of the greatest literature of the world.

Steve Granzyk is the poetry editor of Please See Me.