"Crabbit ", also variously titled "Look Closer", "Look Closer Nurse", "Kate", "Open Your Eyes"Joanna Bornat, "Empathy and stereotype: the work of a popular poem".
"Perspectives on Dementia Care", 5th Annual Conference on Mental Health and Older People, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, 3 November 2005. or "What Do You See?", is a poem written in 1966 by Phyllis McCormack, then working as a nurse in

Sunnyside Hospital Sunnyside Hospital (1863–1999) was the first mental asylum to be built in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was initially known as Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum, and its first patients were 17 people who had previously been kept in the Lyttelton gaol ...

, Montrose. The poem is written in the voice of an old woman in a nursing home who is reflecting upon her life. ''Crabbit'' is

Scots Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: * Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland * Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scoti, a Latin na ...

for "bad-tempered" or "grumpy". The poem appeared in the ''Nursing Mirror'' in December 1972 without attribution. Phyllis McCormack explained in a letter to the journal that she wrote the poem in 1966 for her hospital newsletter. This story was corroborated by an article from the ''Daily Mail'' on 12 March 1998, where Phyllis McCormack's son wrote that his mother composed it in the 1960s, when she submitted it anonymously with the title "Look Closer Nurse" to a small magazine intended just for Sunnyside. The next year, the poem was published in Chris Searle's poetry anthology ''Elders'' (Reality Press, 1973), without title or attribution. Subsequently, a wealth of urban legend has sprung up surrounding this humble work. Most of the legend associated with this poem attributes it to a senile elderly woman in a Dundee nursing home (or sometimes an Irish nursing home), where a nurse found it while packing her belongings following her death. Searle himself was quoted in 1998 as saying of the poem's authorship: "I don't think we'll ever know. I accepted it as authentic." (i.e. as the authentic writing of an infirm old woman). The poem, which paints a rather sad picture of a decrepit woman's final days in care, has been quoted in various works written for and about the caring professions in order to highlight the importance of maintaining the dignity of the lives of elderly patients. It is also included in the Edexcel IGCSE

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

poetry anthology. Several variants exist including, "A Nurse's Reply" and "Cranky Old Man".

Notes

The poem can be seen in the background in the Magnetic Scrolls logo.

References

{{Reflist 1973 poems