By Erin Wood
You can find North Little Rock poet (and Hot Springs native) Karen Hayes at her typewriter—or a microphone—but her heart is with Alzheimer’s patients and veterans.
After losing her husband to Alzheimer’s disease in 2014, Karen began bringing poetry to patients in a memory care unit. In 2017, Alzheimer’s Arkansas sponsored her training with Gary Glazner, the founder and executive director of Alzheimer’s Poetry Project and Poetry for Life. She is currently working on an Alzheimer’s memoir that includes poetry.
Karen is a regular visitor to St. Luke’s Respite, a weekly program that cared for her husband. In January, participants used call and response to recite New Year’s poems, performed a group poem of New Year’s wishes, talked about black-eyed peas, toasted with imaginary champagne, and popped bubble-wrap fireworks.
As part of the Arkansas Arts Council’s Arts in the Military Initiative, Karen works with veterans’ groups. She has also begun a project at the Arkansas State Veterans’ Home, collecting residents’ stories of daily life.
Interested in hearing Karen read or write a poem for you? She is a frequent flyer at Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea and hosts a monthly Poetry Night at Guillermo’s Gourmet Coffee in Little Rock. As Dogtown Poetry on Demand, Karen travels to art walks, street fairs, and festivals with her 1971 Olivetti manual typewriter. You name the subject, she’ll write about it.
For more information about the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, visit alzpoetry.com. Contact Karen on Facebook at @Karen.Hayes.Poet.
A Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press (etaliapress.com). She is editor of and a contributor to Scars: An Anthology and is currently at work on Women Makers of Arkansas, featuring 50+ women creatives. Wood’s work has appeared in Catapult, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine’s Blog, Psychology Today, Tales from the South, and elsewhere, and was a Best American Essays notable.
Photo: Mark Hotchkiss
