EMDR INSPIRED ART AND POETRY

Odland explores eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy from multiple angles in this collection of poems and images.

EMDR is a form of psychotherapy in which a person accesses traumatic memories while focusing on deliberate physical stimulation, such as moving one’s eyes from side to side, which can have the effect of alleviating the stress of such recollections. In this work, Odland shares poems and illustrations from his perspective as an EMDR counselor, or, as he puts it in “Emotional Surgery,” “a well-intentioned therapist / With no scalpel in hand / No surgeon’s mask.” Much of the poetry deals with the particular tension of being both someone who uses EMDR in treatment and someone who has undergone the same therapy. Odland captures the anxiety of wondering whether he’s doing a good job for the people he treats in “What if I Fail”: “What if I rush / To heal their pain / And send them out raw / Through the pouring rain?” In “Have You,” he wonders if his training gets in the way of his own therapy. Other works are written from the perspectives of patients who would benefit from EMDR but are afraid to pursue it or don’t know how to begin. Some use figurative language to describe the process, such as the trio of poems that compare EMDR to playing jazz. Each work is accompanied by the author’s images, mostly drawings or prints in a black-and-white woodblock style. Disembodied eyes and faces are common motifs, but there are also imaginative images of women whose heads are transforming into trees, angels keeping watch over sleeping infants, and anthropomorphized coffee beans wearing boxing gloves.

Odland has a knack for effective similes, as in this description of an EMDR patient’s eye movements from “Miracle”: “Her eyes pace like a worried mother / Wearing out linoleum tile.” At other points, he compares trauma to a hibernating bear or canisters of toxic waste leaking into the ground. Sometimes his perspective as a therapist feels more dominant, as in “EMDR Robot,” which borrows the language of television commercials to pitch a fictitious automaton. There are moments, as in “He Doesn’t Know That I Know,” when the quality of the poetry falters, particularly when it resorts to rhymes: “I’ll try to explain the benefits of EMDR / With my best attempts at articulation / And reframe therapy as courage and strength / To stoke the embers of his dormant motivation.” The images are all high-quality, though, with the gentle imperfections of handmade work. The most effective illustrations capture the same tensions as the poetry, such as the one of a Google homepage in which the letters in the phrase “EMDR therapist” slip slowly out of the search bar. Other images, though well executed, are more opaque in their meaning, such as one that appears to show a paternal Joe Biden comforting a childlike Donald Trump. Still, those with EMDR experience are likely to see a bit of themselves in these pages.

A varied collection of earnest verses and impressive illustrations about therapy.