Hospitals are filled with stories, especially Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

It's the oldest public hospital in the US and also home to a celebrated literary magazine which

turned 20 last year. And for Arts Week, we wanted to revisit this conversation about the Bellevue

Literary Review with NPR Arts correspondent Netta Ullaby. You're listening to Shortwave

from NPR. Happy Birthday Dear Bellevue Literary Magazine. Happy Birthday to you. Yeah, we're doing a

little art and science today on the show. So NPR's Netta Ullaby, welcome. Hi Emily. It's so good

to have you. And you might be the first Arts reporter that we've ever had as a guest on our humble

science podcast. Well, as it happens Emily, I had noticed this something of a

dearth of arts coverage on my favorite science podcast. Like my first love was the Arts Netta.

And science doesn't always give me a ton of occasion to talk about it. And you're here to revolutionize

our show. Like what even is a literary magazine at a hospital? You know what? Let's start by

revolutionizing your show by listening to a poem. It was in the Bellevue Literary Review. It basically

exemplifies the kind of work that it does. Here's poet Thomas Duley. Okay, for this listener's I

want you to settle in, sit back and enjoy. My mother's body. I dreamed your scars first.

The silvery gate down your abdomen from where I was lifted. Behind the red spangle over your middle

rib lies the threshold to the chambers of holy and feral and the flicker that woke you.

I dreamed once I could narrow my eyes as if I could be a scalpel that would in size but not cut you.

A power which startled me awake, blinking in the warm dark.

Oh, okay. Listening to poetry or reading poetry is such a physical experience. Do you get this?

Like on a cellular level, you just feel a little buzzy or a breathless? That might be a good topic

for another shortwave. How poetry changes on us on a cellular level. But you know what, Emily,

I do. I really think it does. And part of what the Bellevue Literary Review is it's taking poems

...