November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month and one Indianapolis woman wants to nurture compassion for those who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy through poetry.

Liz Whiteacre is the author of “it could account for the panic,” a book of 15 poems associated with the disorder. An English professor at the University of Indianapolis, she joined Daybreak on Thursday morning to talk about the poetry collection.

Whiteacre says the book came about after a sufferer reached out to her.

“Indianapolis composer Meadow Bridgham was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy some years ago and wanted to write a song cycle about it. They reached out to me to write poems that then became songs. I asked about turning it into a book-length so that we could reach more people.”

Whiteacre herself doesn’t suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, but her own experiences with disability gave her the necessary insight.

“I have lived with spinal injury and chronic pain for about 25 years, ” she said. “So I appreciate when you’re experiencing something that people don’t quite understand and having an opportunity to share what that’s like. If you’ve ever spoken with people who live with epilepsy, they have a hard time describing it to people who don’t.”

She says that poetry is a fantastic vehicle to convey such strong messages.

“Something poetry helps us do is create comparisons for people using language and sound, as well as music. Having the opportunity to find different things people have experienced, like the morning commute and that frustration in traffic, can make a connection to symptoms people are feeling and help people understand what people are going through.”

Her book of poetry, “it could account for the panic,” is available through wibc.com.​