While Hall-Downs makes it clear in the preface that My Arthritic Heart is an autobiographical account of her struggles with Rheumatoid Arthritis, the poetry, like all good poetry, transcends its subject. In the intense immediacy of the words, Rheumatoid Arthritis becomes every chronic disease; every feeling of marginalisation; every expression of poverty; the sense of being not good enough, not pretty enough, not fit enough.