The Struggle For Women’s Health Echoes the HIV/AIDS Crisis…

A Profile on Kaleb Atkinson

Author of “A Fated Case” and “Prayers, Promises, and Prejudice”

An English professor once told me, reverently, that poetry was almost always political in some way; it was an art form designed to break down barriers and question the truth. Now that I’m thinking about it some odd years later, I suppose she was onto something. A quick google search will have you finding many poets who think the same thing – poetry is political. 

But, as tumblr poets and other contemporaries like Rupi Kaur continue to flood our consciousness, as we return to poetic devotion a la Mahmoud Darwish, we are also inundated with poetry as a window to the soul, or maybe more accurately, a mirror. Is it a mirror for humanity’s greatest virtues or our worst atrocities? 

When I sat down to interview Kaleb Atkinson, author of two poems featured in 11 Second Magazine’s second issue, I was immediately curious about his own history as a poet. Was this a long time hobby? Was this his first time? I wasn’t certain, sitting across from Atkinson, virtually in our case, seeing the background of what looked like a science laboratory to me. I was immediately taken back to many laborious hours spent in those windowless laboratories, with black lab benches slightly in view. 

We took to the conversation like fish to water; Atkinson shared the basics with me efficiently. As a current dual degree student in English and Biology at Centenary College, Atkinson is happy to straddle the boundaries between the sciences and the humanities. 

He laughed while he confessed, “when I started my college journey, I thought I wanted to be a Veterinarian.”

But, as it turns out, poetry and writing, and more broadly, the field of scientific writing, turned Atkinson’s head. 

“Poetry is the thing that really stuck with me,” Atkinson shares. 

While Atkinson’s poetry is punchy and pithy all the same, with lines like “I pity the one who falls into the perilous pitfalls / that your sugared words disguise,” it was abundantly clear that there was a purpose behind his poetry. (Talk about alliteration, too, while we’re at it!)

Interestingly enough, though both of Atkinson’s poems fit so beautifully within the issue, as “A Fated Case” echoes many of the controversies around abortion and Roe v. Wade’s recent overturning and “Prayers, Promises, and Prejudice” speaks to weaponized sentiment, both poems were originally inspired by Atkinson’s research on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I asked him what drew him to that particular topic within health history, curious to know if it was a serendipitous connection or not.   

“It's important to me personally, as a gay male, because it's a part of my personal history. So it was sort of that, and then it's the fact that it’s not really talked about as much. It's viewed as a thing that happened in the past. Now it's mostly just, ‘oh, you take this pill, and you're good to go’. But a lot of people don't really know the backstory and the harshness of the disease.”

I’ll admit now, dear reader, that this was where my journalist senses started tingling. I was so very intrigued by how a story about the HIV/AIDS crisis so perfectly represented the contemporary struggle in women’s health. History repeats itself, doesn’t it? 

So, to call a spade a spade, I shared as much with Atkinson, digging to figure out how he felt about his poems, his creative process, knowing that they speak to more than what even he intended. What struck me as particularly fascinating was his inspiration behind “A Fated Case.” 

Atkinson shares, “when I was doing my research about it, I realized that a lot of the stuff I was finding, it was just medical transcripts, or it was just people arguing points back and forth, sharing their point of views. To me, this looked a lot like a court case with witnesses and prosecutors and defendants. I knew I wanted to do a poem about that, but I wasn't sure how.” 

Struck by what we here at 11 Seconds call a medicolegal impulse (bear with me), Atkinson’s poem toys with scientific jargon and legal terminology, all in an effort to accurately portray what it is like to court public opinion, to be put to trial, and be subject to a jury of your peers. 

“The prosecutor of our fate” is not necessarily a foreign concept, given how far-reaching the justice system can be in this country. Now, over a year from the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which altered 50 years of legal precedent, nearly 16 states have almost-total bans on abortion, with many states also instituting “bounty hunter” bills, which punish providers and permit people to sue those who secure services or aid in doing so. 

This type of punishment is not new – in the 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a lifetime ban on men who have sex with men (MSM). In 2013, the ban was rescinded but with a new caveat, a required period of abstinence for a year. In fact, it wasn’t until May 2023 where the time restrictions were fully lifted, with the FDA moving forward with individual donor screening as opposed to restricting an entire group based on sexual activity and/or orientation. 

All that is to say, really, is that the world of medicine and law have been closely intertwined for many issues, many decades, many seasons. Atkinson’s poem attempts to shed light on it, and in my biased opinion, does a great job at doing so. Much like “A Fated Case” strikes a chord given recent events, we here at 11 Seconds also thought “Prayers, Promises, and Prejudice” really spoke to something we see often, in the light of many crises beyond just women’s health. 

“I definitely think ‘Prayers, Promises and Prejudice’ was a little more personal, in my opinion, because, you know, I've heard all of these things, even in my lifetime. I was raised Southern Baptist, I still am Baptist and religious, just not as intense as other people. So realizing that other people had gone through that, and sort of putting it into words, was a really…I don't want to say emotional process, because I didn't cry or anything, but there were still a lot of big emotions involved,” Atkinson shares. 

The poem, which we accompanied with a piece on Planned Parenthood, is also constructed artfully, to capture the barrage of messaging that often surrounds issues like abortion and sexuality.

“Especially with that P sound continuously pounding in over and over, just like some of the things that people would say, like, oh, well, you're only sick because you're living a lifestyle that we don't approve of, or we'll help you if you do this sort of thing.” 

Atkinson’s personal background in a community of Southern Baptists also arguably shaped his view, especially as he learned to challenge the gender norms he grew up with. Through boarding school and then eventually college, Atkinson exposed himself more and more to issues pertaining to disability, the LGBTQ+ community, women’s rights and health, shaping his writing, his career, and his views. 

I commented rather straightforwardly that this was in and of itself an excellent example of health literacy at play, evidence of how education can and will shape people’s perspectives, pointing them towards evidence-based understandings. It was perhaps Atkinson’s candidness about this that was the most endearing, especially as he compares small group efforts with friends exploring the role of the body in queer spaces to translating Old English to envisioning a health utopia for the LGBTQ+ community. It’s all coming along well and he certainly has a lot on his hands. 

“It's gonna sound kind of like a simple answer, but my utopia for the LGBTQ community is really just, it being normal. Like just acknowledging that it's a thing that happens in both the medical field and in society. We're not fighting for rights, we don’t have to hide or face discrimination in workplaces, or in larger society, which is a perspective that affects not just the LGBTQ community, but also other more marginalized groups.”

The solution sounds simple. Perhaps too simple. But there’s truth to it, isn’t there? If there is one thing that the 11 Seconds Magazine stands behind wholeheartedly, it is normalizing these conversations, normalizing these states of being, so women’s health no longer remains a debated arena of health, so sexuality does not become a primary categorization for someone’s identity. Maybe a utopia is not that far off.   

You can read Kaleb’s work, “A Fated Case” and “Prayers, Promises, and Prejudice” in Issue Two: Violent Delights, Violent Ends. You can also connect with Atkinson on Instagram @kalebatkinson20.