Poesia y Dichos for Latinos Living with Dementia

Introducing today's La Bloga Guest Columnist Gary Glazner discussing the importance of poesia y dichos at the Latino Geriatric Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

Hi!  I am Gary Glazner founder of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP). I am excited to be a guest columnist at La Bloga and to write about my passion of performing and creating poetry with people living with dementia.

One of the groups I have had the honor of working with is the Latino Geriatric Center in Milwaukee. A core of the APP is to use poetry that people living with dementia might have learned as children. When working with a Spanish speaking community we have had success using dichos.

Nelva Olin, the Adult Day Care, Program Coordinator led our first session. She began by using the APP technique of call and response. The session leader says a line of the dicho and has the group echo the lines after her. It is key to say the lines with enthusiasm and clarity and to get the group to match your level of energy. Nelva recited and the group responded:

Pan es pan, queso es queso
no hay amor sino hay un beso.

Nelva Olin

Al Castor, the Program Director, remembered hearing that particular dicho as a child and that his sisters had used it as a rhyme to jump rope. Once saying the dicho and laughing at the words warmed up the group, Nelva continued by asking each person to talk about their first kiss. This led to an enthusiastic response from each of the 12 participants. It seems each person has a story about his or her first kiss. The stories and the laughter were contagious.

Here is the poem the group created. Ruth Fuentes the Latino Geriatric Center Nurse translated it into English.

El Beso

Pan es pan

Queso es queso

No hay amor

Si no hay besos.

Cuando no hay pan

Y no hay queso

Si no hay cariño o besos

No hay queso, ni besos, ni amor

… y no hay vino…

Cuando era niña ella recuerda

Que pedía a sus padres

Un pedacito de pan o queso

Pero no podían porque eran pobres,

Pero amor siempre le daban.

Amor es más grande que el pan y queso…

Recuerdo que fui a una tienda

No había ni pan ni queso

Pero encontré una novia y le di un beso.

Algunas no dan besos,

Es mas aun desprecian

Nunca tuve amor de nadie

Excepto por el poco cariño de mi madre.

Mi madre me dijo un día

Te doy pan y te doy queso

Si no te comes todo eso

No te doy un beso.

Lo que quiere decir que

 Cuando tienes novio

Y no le das un beso

No habrá pan tampoco.

Cuando uno es quinceañero

Uno se ilusiona a los 14, 15 o 16…

Pero a los 18 ya se sabe

Que si dices si o no…

Y te comes el biscocho.

Participant at the Latino Geriatric Center

The Kiss

Bread is bread

Cheese is cheese

There is no love

If we don’t kiss.

When there is no bread

There is no cheese,

There are neither kisses nor love

There is no cheese, no love, and no kisses

… nor there is wine…

She remembered that as a child

She asked her parents for bread and cheese

There was no bread or cheese to give

But love they always give.

Love is greater than bread and cheese…

I remember going to the store

There was no bread or cheese

But I found love and a girl to kiss.

Some girls don’t kiss me anymore

Some even disregard me.

I feel like no one loved me

Except for my mother’s love.

My mother told me once

“I’ll give you bread and cheese

But if you don’t eat them all

I won’t even give you a kiss.”

This means that…

When you have a boyfriend

And don’t kiss him

There’ll be no bread either.

When one is a teenager…

You are a dreamer at 14, 15 and 16

But at 18 you already know

Whether to say yes or no

and when you can eat your dessert.

Here is project artist Xavier Ortells on using Spanish with people living with dementia:

(Click here to see and hear Xavier Ortells!)

More info on the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project at:

www.alzpoetry.com

The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project is happy to announce the publication of Nútreme Hoy (Nurture me today). Our new Spanish language anthology contains: 50 poems and Dichos; essays on how to use poetry to connect to people living with dementia; and how to create a poetry program.

Here is a link to Gary Glazner performing a poem inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca: CLICK HERE

Gary Glazner

Gary Glazner is the founder and Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project, (APP). The National Endowment for the Arts listed the APP as a “best practice” for their Arts and Aging initiative. NBC's “Today” show, NPR's “All Things Considered” and Voice of America have featured segments on Glazner’s work. 

Harper Collins, W.W. Norton and Salon.com have published his work. Glazner has worked with many institutions using their art to inspire the performance and creation of poetry by people living with memory loss including the Museum of Modern Art. In 2010, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin funded a pilot project for the APP in Germany.  This work has led to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw funding a pilot project for the APP in Poland in 2012.

In 1990, working with Marc Smith the inventor of the Poetry Slam, a performance poetry competition, Glazner produced the first National Poetry Slam, which was held in San Francisco. This annual event is now in its 23^rd year. To date the APP has held programming in 23 states and served over 10,000 people living with dementia. The Alzheimer's Poetry Project was awarded the 2012 MetLife Foundation Creativity and Aging in America Leadership Award in the category of Community Engagement.