In advance of their annual Expert Day, the Irish Epilepsy League ran a competition for health science/medical students to write a creative essay/poem in prose about epilepsy.
The Irish Epilepsy League are the Irish chapter of the International League Against Epilepsy. Their membership comprises of epilepsy healthcare professionals and the epilepsy research and scientific community working in Ireland.
Epilepsy Ireland were invited to part of the judging panel in the competition and the standard of submissions this year – like previous years – was incredible. People we engage with occasionally make the point that their epilepsy can be misunderstood by those within the medical community or other members of the public but from reading the submissions received, we feel the future is certainly looking bright when it comes to the next generation of medical professionals.
However, there can only be one winner – and this year, that was 4th Year Pharmacy student at Trinity College Dublin, Ciara McConnell – with her poem “The fault beneath the field”
Speaking about her poem, Ciara said:
From a young age, I have had a great love of reading and writing across a wide variety of literary genres and forms. When I came across this competition, I was delighted by the opportunity to bring together my academic knowledge and creative interests. Writing the poem presented a welcome and thought-provoking challenge over the quieter summer months.
Although I do not have direct personal experience of epilepsy, conversations with people living with the condition helped inform my understanding of the physical, psychological, social and emotional challenges that can accompany a diagnosis.
I also drew upon my own experience of a prolonged period of illness that lasted from my mid-teens to relatively recently. Although these are very different conditions, my own experience gave me some understanding of the feelings of powerlessness, uncertainty and isolation that can accompany illness, particularly when it begins to shape one’s sense of identity and independence.
To paraphrase Cicero, “While there is life, there is hope.” This is the sentiment I hoped to convey in the closing lines of my poem. No matter how draining or overwhelming a diagnosis may feel, the possibility of hope, purpose and renewal remains. Like the peat drawn from an Irish bog, something that appears quiet and unremarkable may still smoulder beneath the surface, capable of kindling a flame and illuminating the world, even in the smallest of ways.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the judges for selecting my poem and for the generosity of this award. It is a tremendous honour to have my work recognised, particularly in the company of those whose professional lives are devoted to understanding and improving the lives of people affected by epilepsy.
We would like to say a huge congratulations to Ciara - and well done to everyone who entered. We are very pleased to feature Ciara’s poem in full at the end of this article – something we know will speak to all those living with epilepsy. If you would like to see read previous winning entries of the IEL’s annual writing competition, visit the ‘Awareness’ section of our website.
If you need any support or information around your or your family member’s journey with epilepsy, do not hesitate to get in touch with your local Community Resource Officer. You can find their details by visiting the 'Our Local Services' section of our website.
The fault beneath the field
The neurologist's screen flickers like bog-light,
green traces jagged as a snipe's flight-path.
I lie wired to the dark electrodes, cold
as stones lifted from a winter drill,
and something in me sparks and will not hold —
a fault-line in the wet turf of the brain,
a seam that gives, the way a field gives way
under too much rain, and the whole surface
trembles though the plough has not yet come.
At home they say the word, round like a stone
they're loath to swallow. Mother scours the delph
though it is clean. My father goes out to the shed
for no good reason, stands among the tools
he isn't using. Love here, is a hand
that steadies nothing, only wants to hold.
I feel it coming like weather off the hill —
a hush, a smell of ozone before rain,
the world gone underwater for a beat,
then I am elsewhere, on the far bank, gone,
and come back wading, heavy, second-hand
in my own limbs, as if I'd borrowed them.
There is the cost of it too, plain as a bill
pinned to the dresser: tablets, and the specialist's
fee like a toll on a bad road, the job
that eyes me sideways now, the license lost —
a man measured, like land, by what he's worth
to insurers, to foremen, to the state
that hands out forms instead of hands.
And yet. Face down some nights I say a prayer
not learned in a church but dug up like a root —
not asking to be cured, but to be held
the way turf holds the shape of what once stood
and walked here, pressed by weight of years to dark,
compressed but burnable, still fit for flame.
I am the bog and what the bog has kept.
I'll not be drained.
I'll smoulder and give heat.