Mimesis: Poetry and Imitating Medicine

Mimesis in poetry is the imitation or re-creation of reality using art. Thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Adorno have wondered at this human capacity to symbolize, and how it helps us make our own sense of, and express to others, both our external and internal worlds. In the poem “Needlework at the Hospital,” poetic mimesis is at work on several levels. The structure of the poem’s lines, with their alternating indentations and “in and out” sense of movement, imitates the crocheting that is the patient’s primary means of communication despite the silencing of the medical world she enters; the ride home after the biopsy, as “we weave through traffic,” also suggests crisscrossing motion. Her handiwork (that notably must be stowed under the gurney) also recapitulates the stories of other women speaking when they were similarly disempowered. Mythical weavers such as Arachne, Penelope, and Ariadne—and even the childhood heroine Charlotte of Charlotte’s Web—all made themselves heard through their looms and threads. Readers can further see that the “needlework” of the poem’s title, “the beginning of something” for the patient, mimics the needling that targets the “suspicious cells,” deftly merging external and internal realities in a manner that both humanizes and makes comprehensible the as yet unknown diagnosis. Whether she is making a cap that will keep her warm while receiving chemotherapy or a blanket to comfort her at home while watching TV, the end result, “again and again and//again,” is that we can all feel our humanity echoed in the mimesis of poetry.