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Carolyn Corbett, BS, BFA, MFA Printer-Friendly
Carolyn
Corbett, BS, BFA, MFA
Acts of Discovery with Paper and Pencil
As told by Carolyn Corbett BS, BFA, MFA
Poetry is the individual imagination made
actual, touchable and real. Poetry and the
imagination have the power to re-invent, re-imagine
and re-conceive what it means to be alive.
My name is Carolyn Corbett and every day I get to
work with our Resident-Neighbors here at Northeast
Center for Special Care including persons with
traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury as
they create original works of writing and poetry.
I believe that all of us are constantly in our own
therapeutic process of seeking to be whole. How much
more so people who have been injured. I think people
who have experienced an injury and loss are seeking
a rapture of life. To me why Northeast Center for
Special Care is so brilliant is that we offer people
tools for people to reach out for life and give our
Resident-Neighbors a hope to rebuild their lives.
To me, it's almost mythological how I came to work
at Northeast Center. I had relocated to upstate New
York a couple of years ago and I was looking for
work. I visited my undergraduate college which is in
the area to attend an art exhibition. While there I
saw an employment notice from Northeast Center that
said they were looking for someone with my
experience to work with individuals with traumatic
brain injury and spinal cord injury in the Fine Arts
Program. I literally almost jumped through the
ceiling of the building. I said "That's my
job!" I knew at that moment that I just had to
do that job. I couldn't get to a phone fast enough.
I had several interviews and then I came on board.
Originally I started experimenting by doing theatre
with Resident-Neighbors. I soon discovered that
during the groups I facilitated people were
saying some profound things and what they were saying
was so full of depth, soul and wisdom that I realized
that we had tapped into a very therapeutic process.
One day I gave the group-members paper and pencils and it just
burgeoned from there. Our Resident-Neighbors began
creating some extraordinary works of poetry. With
the support of my supervisors at Northeast Center we
created the writing program.
I've learned that no matter what a persons cognitive
or physical circumstances are people have a desire
to share things that are uniquely their own. I see
that in much of the writing that our
Resident-Neighbors do. People want to see their
creations and they want others to see it as well.
It's like acorns that become tall oaks. I think
people who have been injured eventually want to grow
again and that my role is feeding and nurturing the
tree to help it grow; in this case the trees are
individuals with brain and spinal cord injury. I
approach the work I do with the questions: how can I
assist them? How can I support them and help
them realize their own unique potential and sharing
it with the world? I try to empathize with
Resident-Neighbors. I try to see myself as having
the same injury and I treat everyone as if it were
me.
I
was always interested in the arts. During high
school I had been studying during the summers at
Oberlin College, they had a wonderful theatre
program where I studied Shakespeare with Patrick
Stewart when I was fifteen and sixteen. I took a
year off after high school and then entered
Methodist College in Southern Indiana and was
accepted to their BFA program in theatre. I attended
Methodist for two years and decided that I wanted to
expand to the visual arts so I transferred to SUNY
New Paltz, in upstate New York. Later I attended New
York University as a graduate student and studied
acting.
I also worked with the Metropolitan Opera Guild in
New York City; they have a program called
"Creating Original Opera," where they
train artists in the community to go into the New
York City school system and develop original operas
with a designated class of thirty-five-forty
students. I am also a writer, film-maker and
actor.
Resident-Neighbors who go through the specialized
rehabilitation program at Northeast Center for
Special Care are truly some of the most interesting
and unique individuals I've ever met. I work with
one Resident-Neighbor who because of a brain injury
tends to repeat things she says and has a difficult
time focusing when being verbal. However, when writing,
she is one of the most eloquent people I've ever
read. Because of her writing I've discovered that
she is a passionate person which has impressed me a
great deal.
On a different occasion a Resident-Neighbor came into the
group for the first time and I gave him
paper and a pencil. That day I had given the group a
one word theme to write on. I watched him as he spent two
hours intently focused on writing a paragraph. He
never looked away from the paper and appeared immersed
in thought. What he wrote was a very simple story about an
event that had happened in his life; but what was
inside that simple story was something bigger - the
human story. These little pieces of writing contain
the whole human tale in all of its wonder.
I believe that poetry engages the brain, body and
heart of a person. Poems are an act of discovery
that is why it is so therapeutic. I see our
Resident-Neighbors as alchemists - through their
writings they make gold. I feel privileged to be
able to witness this - I am thankful to be around
them.
To be apart of the specialized rehabilitation
programs at Northeast Center for Special Care and to
have an affect on the people we assist to recover
and reenter the community fells to me like the most
important thing I will ever do.
Carolyn is anther talented
member of our unique Northeast Center Team.
Our mission drives our philosophy and treatment
programs. Our successful outcomes of assisting
people to return to the community are recognized
worldwide.
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