ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an account of the story of Polly who was a nurse and a poet. Polly's search for rhythms and rhymes reassured her that there was a structure somewhere during those times when she felt most in danger of being overwhelmed by nursing work. What is surprising is that, compared to other poetry written by nurses, her lines contain so few references to the actual work of nursing and only fleeting references to patients. The author's own research on resilience has suggested that nurses, and others, who have a confident understanding of the political structures that underpin their work might be considered more resilient than those who do not. But for Polly, the structures that she needed to keep herself together were the structures of language itself.
