Poetic Medicine & The Soul’s Journey

Poetry is the most ancient literary form. It intertwines song, prayer and storytelling. On every continent, human beings have been pouring our hearts and souls into making poems for many centuries. Poem-making is a natural and vital form of individual expression, which when shared, can foster community and enhance public health.

A poem is medicinal when it gives voice to deep, honest feelings using language from the body—words that portray our sensory experience. Because of this expression, something inside the poet opens, releases, clarifies, celebrates, mourns, prays, or inwardly expands. “Even breathing becomes easier.”

When you feel as if a poem speaks directly, vividly to your lived experience—as if it speaks for you and allows you to speak for yourself all the more. You feel recognized and not so alone, even fortified. The poem helps you cope, endure, have hope, imagine, feel resilience, and voice your truth.

A Practitioner of Poetic Medicine (PPM) is someone with a history of using poetry for their own healing. They believe in this modality so strongly that they learn to create mindful, supportive environments where other people, either individually or in groups, can experience poetry as healing too, even if they do not regard themselves as poets.

It is gathering of people who interact with poems and each other for the purpose of gaining greater self-understanding within a kind, supportive community. We read aloud and linger with poems selected by the PPM. This process “seeds the air” and stirs the heart, the imagination as well as memory. Participants then respond in writing to what spontaneously seeks to be voiced inside of them. When we return to the Circle, each person is invited yet not pressured to read aloud their writing. Each person and their poem is received with deep, unhurried, affirmative attention.

Through their poems, participants give voice to emotions that relate to:

· death of a loved one
· anxiety associated with mental health issues within their family
· caregiving of a spouse with dementia
· finding courage while recovering from · depression
· sense of worthlessness & shame instilled by religious dogma
· cultivating greater self-esteem & confidence
· choosing to accept & love their body, their identity

Through their poems, participants give voice to emotions that relate to:

· adjusting to retirement & loss of professional identity
· aging & witnessing decline of elders
· trying to forgive deep-rooted violations
· processing traumatic experiences, old & new
· gratitude for beautiful experiences
· living with serious, chronic disease
· mourning collective tragedies