Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky recently lent his voice to a documentary film about the work of Memory Bridge: The Foundation for Alzheimer’s and Cultural Memory in Chicago. Pinsky’s most recent poetry collection, Gulf Music, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 16.
Pinksy said that the film, There Is a Bridge, which illustrates how companionship affects individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and other dementias, relates to subjects he has addressed in his poems, namely that "we all lose things, we all forget things, we all must choose who to stay with." Pinsky called There Is a Bridge "a graphic, prominent example of a process that seems to me near the center of human life and has been fundamental to my recent work."
Memory Bridge was founded in 2004 to create community of people who "are learning to listen to people with dementia for what they have to teach us about our own humanity." More than five million people in the U.S. are affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
The documentary, directed by Ted Kay and distributed by American Public Television, premiered on September 1 on PBS stations.
