A History of Nursing

The poems in A History of Nursing combine the professional life of a woman in the healing arts with the other aspects of her life. Just as she can never stop being the child of her parents, an adult woman, or a mother, a life in nursing colors everything she does and feels. When the nurse becomes a critically ill patient, all of those elements fuse, making her understand the impact she, as a nurse, has had on others.

Anne Webster was nominated for a National Book Award in Poetry in 2009 as well as a 45th Georgia Author of the Year Nominee. Anne speaks across the Southeast at writing conferences and leads poetry workshops. This book is another extraordinary poetry collection from Kennesaw State University Press.

What People are Saying about A History of Nursing

~Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Unmentionables, Tender Hooks, and Great with Child: Letters to a Young MotherThese are gutsy life-experience poems from a nurse-poet who knows "the forces that bend people like trees under a wet spring snow." Read these poems again and again to get to the truth--the whole truth of how her life was and how her life remains. Here, in strong poems, is a complex life fully exposed.

~Judy Schaefer, RNC, MA, author of Harvesting the Dew, editor of The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries
of Leading Nurse-Poets (Kent State University, 2006); co-editor, Between the Heartbeats and Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses


Anne Webster, in poems both raw and redeeming, lets us walks beside her as she enters the many worlds she inhabits as nurse, daughter, wife, mother, traveler and, perhaps most poignantly, as patient. This poet has a keen eye and a special gift: the ability to interweave tragedy with a cheeky determination to survive, and empathy with humor. These poems, with their delightfully surprising and gritty images, are the observations of a true nurse--one who has been there, who has seen and done those things, and who would, without a moment’s hesitation, rush to save us.”

~Cortney Davis, author of I Knew a Woman: Four Women Patients and Their Female Caregiver, Leopold’s Maneuvers, and Details of Flesh, and co-editor of Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses

~Sayantani DasGupta, MD MPH author of Her Own Medicine: A Woman's Journey from Student to Doctor and co-editor of Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write their Bodies

More Reader Reviews

More Reader Reviews

A DIVINE BOOK OF POETRY FOR THE DISCERNING AND FEARLESS READER
By Rosemary Daniell  My Zona Rosa.com
Anne Webster's A HISTORY OF NURSING is a welcome relief to the blandness that too often inhabits the poetry world today. Based on her personal experiences with both nursing and life as a woman, these pungent poems go to the heart of what it means to be human -- and at the same time, are beautifully, even elegantly, crafted. For those of us who have longed for another woman poet of brilliance - who want to feel again the blaze left behind by Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, Anne Webster's poems will read as a great relief. Or as one of my writing students said, "This is Pulitzer Prize material!"

POIGNANT AND EXTRAORDINARY
By Nancy W. Morris
Anne Webster's collection of poetry is poignant and extraordinary. I read the entire book in one sitting, unable to put it down. Whether you want to delve into the challenges and joys of the nursing profession or want to be moved and inspired by complex family relationships, I highly recommend this book.

POEMS LIKE BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATES
By Olivia M. Stiffler
Anne Webster's poems are delicious, like premium-quality assorted chocolates, the bittersweet kind. I hold on to each one a long time, turning it over and over in my mind, not wanting it to be the last. Her work reminds me of that of Sharon Olds in the way it embodies the flavors of the every day in a profound clarity of expression: "At first white means bride dolls, the snow that falls once or twice each winter. Then it becomes . . . ." Thus she moves us with her from shared experience to personal meaning. With another piece she may reverse the direction of travel. Whatever the course she chooses to explore, she is a first-rate guide navigating the world of feeling. Cheers from my megaphone for "A History of Nursing." I am on my second reading and eagerly awaiting the next volume.

MASTERFUL USE OF LANGUAGE
By A Delicious Dish
Even if you have no interest in the medical field, Anne Webster will pull you into her life as a nurse with her masterful use of language. Direct, controlled, and vivid, her words take one into the not-so-pretty world of hospital and operating rooms, where pain and its attendant emotions are often treated with crass indifference. Webster manages to deliver her message with the same skilled hand that nursed her patients; that is, with the reverence of a parish priest.

WONDERFUL ... SIMPLY WONDERFUL
By Joyce L. Crowder
I feel so honored to have been able to hear Mrs. Webster read some of these poems herself! How gripping. From someone who doesn't always "get" poetry the first go round..all I can say is Wow..simply wow! I couldn't put it down until the last page was turned. Thank you for sharing!


USES HER LITERARY GENES
By Ellen H. Ulken,  www.ellenulken.georgiawriters.org
In A History of Nursing, Anne Webster expresses through poetry, her struggles and triumphs as daughter, sister, wife, mother, nurse and patient. She tells her story with walloping, rhythmic verses, offering the reader both jolting truth and soothing revelation. Using her literary genes, "tossed like dice from a cup," she captures life's misery and mystery, by "honing words into polished beauty."


TENDER AND DEAR
By C. J. Atticus
I enjoyed the insights into the nursing profession and the heartwarming reminiscing of family. I hightly recommend this book. It will make you think and feel.


NO-HOLDS-BARRED POETRY
By Susan G.
A History of Nursing is a fascinating look into the interior life and thoughts of a nurse. Gritty and intense, Webster's poems open the door to the Emergency Room, the ICU, and the dreariest of hospital floors to take an eyes-wide-open, no-holds-barred look at life -- and death. But don't think the poems are limited to nursing and hospitals. They also examine Webster's life as a daughter, a wife, and a mother. I highly recommend this extraordinary collection of poems.

OUTSTANDING
By A. Lovett
Anne Webster was brought up to be ladylike, but these poems aren't the type you'd read at a ladies' luncheon. Her unflinching views of life, love, and nursing are expressed in careful craft. They often bleed and often weep and are sometimes not easy to read--especially those set in the hospital--but they speak to the truth. A good test of a poet's appeal is whether there are requests from the audience for particular poems, and Webster is often asked to read "The Woman My Husband Should Have Married," among others.

IMAGERY IS OUTSTANDING
By Betty White
This book of poetry is one of the best. The imagery is outstanding. It vividly tells the story of nursing experiences as well as the author's life. I highly recommend it.