John Okrent: Poet & Family Doctor
Introduction to John Okrent. 2:02 min. Interview: Raymond Elman. Post-Production: Lee Skye. Photos: John Okrent. Music: Dee Yan-Kee, Recorded via Zoom: 8/1/2022
JOHN OKRENT (b.1980) is a poet and a family doctor. His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Plume, Poetry Northwest, Field, and The Seattle Times, among other journals. He was chosen by Carl Phillips as the winner of the 2021 Jeff Marks Memorial Prize. Okrent works at a community health center in Tacoma, WA, where he lives with his wife and two young children in a fisherman’s cabin on Puget Sound.
Okrent’s first book of poems, “This Costly Season,” about the covid pandemic in 2020, was recently published by Arrowsmith. One of the poems was first published on the front page of the Seattle Times, above the fold.
Poet Edward Hirsch wrote: “John Okrent’s well-crafted crown of sonnets about being a doctor during the pandemic is unexpected and necessary, compulsively readable, haunting and hallucinatory. There is something both very ancient and very new about these eloquent, interlocking poems of worry, illness, supplication, and praise.”
The videos below were recorded via Zoom, are organized by Success Factor, and run between 30 seconds and 8 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
READING FROM “THIS COSTLY SEASON”: 3:37 min.
I read your book as though it was one continuous epic poem.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 3:03 min.
How did the evolution of the pandemic, and the ebbing of fear of the unknown, impact your need to write poetry about your pandemic experiences?
CREATIVE FLEXIBILITY: 1:01 min.
Are you still writing poems about the pandemic?
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:22 min.
Given that you are a doctor on the frontlines, does the pandemic feel like it might be the most impactful event you will ever write about?
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 1:01 min.
Where did you grow up, and what was your first awareness of art of any discipline?
COMMUNITY VALUES: 0:41 sec.
So if you grew up in Worthington and New York, why are you a Chicago Cubs fan?
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 0:35 sec.
Your parents are both writers. Did that cause you to embrace or resist reading and writing?
DEVELOP A VOICE: 1:55 min.
When did you first start to take writing seriously?
UNDERSTANDS ARTISTS’ NEEDS: 3:25 min.
There are many examples of people in the arts who had dual careers — Paul Gaugin, Wallace Stevens, Richard Blanco, Anton Chekhov come easily to mind — but I am guessing you had no thoughts about becoming a doctor when you were studying poetry in college.
PERSEVERANCE FURTHERS: 2:57 min.
As a poet, what did you have to do to qualify for medical school?
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 0:49 sec.
I would imagine that healthcare professionals must love you for what you are doing.
SERENDIPITY: 1:45 min.
How did your colleagues respond when one of your pandemic poems was published above the fold on the front page of the “Seattle Times”?
CRITICAL THINKING: 2:45 min.
Did you try to balance these poems such that each one included a little bit of melancholy, a little bit of reality, and a little bit of hope?
RESILIENCE: 0:58 sec.
One of the pandemic events that was omitted from your poems was the nightly banging of pots and pans to show appreciation for healthcare providers. Of course, that ritual didn’t last long.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 1:55 min.
Describe the fisherman’s cabin you call home, which appears in some of your poems.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 2:57 min.
What’s your favorite movie?
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:57 min.
How have you juggled being a doctor on the frontlines of the pandemic with being a young father with two kids under the age of four?
