There is increasing evidence to show that, after developing Parkinson’s, some people discover a new artistic side they never knew they had – and those who were already artistic can find that it boosts their creativity.
Martin Pickard, from Bedfordshire in the UK, is a co-founder of new online poetry collective Poets with Parkinson’s and has personal experience of this artistic boost. “There seems to be a percentage of people with Parkinson’s who get this creative surge, and poetry took hold of me,” he says.
Martin began writing poetry as a teenager but then family life and a busy career in facilities management took over. Decades later, during a two-year “limbo” when he was struggling to cope with mysterious symptoms that would eventually be explained by a Parkinson’s diagnosis, he took it up once more. “I came back to it as therapy to start with, to help me work out what was happening to me, but got really caught up in it,” he says.
Martin was finally diagnosed during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. “I couldn’t go and see anybody, I couldn’t go to any support groups, I couldn’t even meet with my kids to talk about it. Everything was online,” remembers Martin. But through poetry he was able to build bonds with other people with Parkinson’s. “Through various Facebook groups, I met a few people and discovered there were more like me! During lockdown I started running some open-mic events for poets with Parkinson’s and we built this little community,” he says.
Last year, Martin got together with a few other poets to found Poets with Parkinson’s, a platform where poets with the condition share their work with others on an online poetry ‘wall’. He and his two fellow administrators check the 80 or so poems that come in each month and most get posted on the site. Martin, who retired in 2019, says that simply running the website can take up a day of his time every week. “One, it’s something for me to do – a replacement for my previous addiction of work – but also there’s a real community; these are lovely people and it’s really nice to be able to curate [their work] and help them.”
The poetry on Poets with Parkinson’s is not all about Parkinson’s, and Martin stresses that this is why the group is called Poets with Parkinson’s, not Parkinson’s Poets. “We’re poets who happen to have Parkinson’s; we don’t only write about Parkinson’s, but our Parkinson’s experience obviously informs the way we look at the world,” he says.
Poets with Parkinson’s has taken off both in the UK and around the world. There are nearly 50 members who post their work on the site, while a further 100 come to the regular open-mic sessions or take part in other Poets with Parkinson’s activities. “We’ve got a very active group in Germany, who run German poetry evenings and events as well, and then we’ve got regulars from Italy, America, Croatia, Australia – all sorts of places,” says Martin.
The collective is a lifeline for some of its users. “With this condition it’s easy to feel isolated – even a bit fragile. Some of our members tell us they really look forward to the time they spend with us and it’s one of the top spots of the month. And the community of sharing and commenting on each other’s poems – people really value it,” says Martin.
He also makes time to produce his own poetry. “I probably spend an hour or two a day working on my poems,” says Martin, who writes and performs as a “Shaken Word” poet. “My poems are real slow-burners; I don’t sit down and write it. I just finished one I started about three months ago. I let it cook and fester and ripen…”
He shares that he writes three types of poetry: one that is personal and just for him; regular poetry; and poetry to help advocate for Parkinson’s, including a series he has written about non-motor symptoms. “Because people only know tremor, it was really nice to do a collection of what about the constipation, what about the depression, what about the indecision, what about the sleepless nights,” he says.
Martin was also involved in this year’s Parkinson’s UK campaign for World Parkinson’s Day. “We had poems up in lights on Piccadilly Circus, on billboards and all sorts of places,” he says.
Last year, Martin took part in an Innovation Lab run by Parkinson’s Europe to explore how to raise awareness, inspire and encourage exploration of the ‘creative burst’ experienced by some people with Parkinson’s. Sponsored by NeuroDerm, the workshop brought together people with Parkinson’s, neurologists and technologists to experiment with immersive experiences.
Asked if he believes in a Parkinson’s ‘creative surge’, Martin replies: “No question, and almost all of our group members say the same thing – even those that wrote poetry before say that since developing the disease they feel this extra surge of creativity, this extra impetus; they’re writing deeper, longer, more insightful poetry.”
Indeed, poetry is not Martin’s only creative outlet. “I’ve taken up a bit of art as well,” he says. “I never did that at all before Parkinson’s. I do a lot of pen-and-ink stuff, but I’ve also been playing around with acrylics and painting brightly coloured flowers and birds and things – I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing! It’s fun and it uses up some of that creative energy.”
Watch Martin perform his poems on YouTube
