In thinking about the human power to influence mental and emotional health, I recalled Gretel Erlich’s book A Match to the Heart. After fully recovering from a heart issue related to a lightning strike, she decided to shadow her cardiologist on his rounds. As the doctor talked to one patient in his bed, Erlich observed the blood pressure monitor behind the man. As the doctor listened to his patient’s concerns, reaching out to put his hand on his shoulder in reassurance, Erlich watched the illuminated numbers on the monitor gradually descend into normal range. While a percentage of mental health maladies have organic or biochemical causes, mental illness is often rooted in our particular circumstances and the quality of our relationships with others. Given that, all of us have the opportunity to be mental health care providers. Whether we treat each other with kindness and caring or isolate from others contributes to a community’s, to a country’s, general mental and emotional health.

The poems selected this month, read together, underscore both the human vulnerability to mental and emotional suffering and the power we possess as individuals to impact the wellness of others. Kelsey Day’s “monochrome” provides a stark representation of how devastating the suffering of the mind can be, portraying images of a world drained of color and of the power to act, suggesting in this diminished state one “must beg/and beg/for water.” The narrative behind Lanette Sweeney’s two poems traces the loss of a son to suicide. In “What I Should Have Said” and “The Body’s Expression,” the speaker conveys not only the desolation of such a loss but the not atypical feeling of guilt one closely conneced to the suicide might have. James Nicola’s exquisitely creative wordplay in “Mother and Mind,” however, suggests that feelings of regret may be inevitable when the people we love are lost—in this case, to what appears to be dementia or Alzheimer’s.

The poems of Lily Gavazov and Andrew P. Dillon introduce the potential of the broader corrosive influence of social norms. Gavazov’s “Princess of Wales” exposes, satirically yet sympathetically, the obsessive need for perfection related to eating disorders, especially regarding personal appearance. The speaker in Dillon’s “The Shadow,” implores “show me   how/ to love   a body   without/ the      need           to grind it/into an image     the world       is willing/ to reflect.” In “Blood Clot Coda,” a triumphant response is provided to the anguish over body changes related to a rare blood condition: “ I know what I gained/In 2015/I did not/kill myself/ I decided to sing.” Similarly, Emily Boshkoff, our winner of the 2021 Mental Health Awareness Contest, maps her lifelong struggle with depression and her strength in learning how to face and remedy it in her narrative work “Grace and Grit.” With poignant lyricism, Susan Coppock’s “Narrow Corner, Carpinteria” pulls the reader into a canvas where she watches the fading of an uncle’s mind and where, after his death, she recognizes the precarious nature of her role in both coping with loss and seeking to console her aunt: “she and I each tacking/close to the wind.” Such writing, as well as that in poems by Mark Blickley and Rose Menyon Heflin, will absorb and reward the attentive reader.

In Ci Vediamo, a memoir by the poet Richard Hugo reflecting on his experience in Italy during WWII, he recalls getting lost in the Italian countryside while trying to get back to his bomb squadron on foot. Exhausted, he sat down and became mesmerized by the wind fanning a field of sunlit wheat. Writing about it some twenty years later, he realized that his body had gone slack in that moment as his mind began to release months of fear and tension from being at war. Refreshed, he continued his search, and shortly after encountered an elderly Italian peasant woman who asked him for a cigarette. With painful regret, he remembers brusquely ignoring her and moving on. With greater clarity, Hugo marvels at the paradoxical nature of our humanity—capable of being comforted, recognizing what we need to be at peace—and yet capable also of holding ourselves apart from others and denying their humanity in our self-absorption. In the past year of strife, of pandemic and political upheaval, many of us may have felt lost, perhaps even at war. It appears our chance to be with one another again is just over the next hill. What can each of us do to make this new opportunity to be together the occasion for peace of mind that heals and endures—and is widespread?

Steve Granzyk is the poetry editor of Please See Me.