The Healing Power of Poetry #WorldPoetryDay

The late writer, AA Gill, once wrote of poetry:

By some internal magic, poetry hovers above the page, over the words. It happens outside the black-and-white lines, as if the writing were clairvoyant, calling spirit meanings, voices from beyond. Even if we haven’t read a new one for a decade, still there are verses that are the most precious and dear cultural amulets we own, hidden in the dead letter boxes of our hearts.

Gill says it better than I ever could, but for me, the magic and power of poetry lies in its ability in a few lines to make you stop, think and feel deep emotions.   When I read a good poem my heart and mind are moved. That is why I like to share with you each Friday those verses that have moved and inspired me. I hope it provides you with the same kind of pleasure as it does for me.

Kim Rosen in her book Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words (Hay House) has advice for those who aren’t quite so fond of poetry (as I was for many years).

You don’t have to love all poetry. Do you love all music? Do you love every piece of art you see? Find just one poem you love, and speak it out loud. Your body, feelings, voice, and thoughts will come into harmony when you speak a poem that matters to you, and that can be incredibly healing.

When I was in school, I was taught poetry in an uninspired way by my teachers who sucked the joy out of it for me.  It was all about memorizing and analyzing the words to pass exams. So what a revelation to discover a joy and meaning in poetry I never could have imagined all those years ago sitting in the classroom. When I started writing this blog – and at the same time began to discover the poetry of Mary Oliver, Naomi Nye, David Whyte, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and May Sarton among others –  I found my own experience powerfully reflected back to me and I became a convert. Now I cannot imagine a world without poetry.

I like how Rosen explains it: “When you attend a symphony, you lean back, close your eyes, and go for the ride. You’re not thinking to yourself, Now, what was Beethoven trying to say with that particular chord? But with poetry, because it’s words on a page, we think we’re supposed to understand it the way we understand a newspaper article. The left brain says, Aha! This is my domain. It wants a literal meaning to the poem. But poetry is the stuff of the right brain — the ineffable, the emotional, the relational — arriving dressed up in the costume of the left brain: words.”

Poetry communicates at the subconscious level. Read what novelist and poet, Robert Penn Warren, says:

In the end, the poem is not a thing we see; it is, rather, a light by which we may see–and what we see is life.

Rafael Campo, Professor of internal medicine at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center believes in poetry’s power to heal and enrich us.

Poetry has the power to say that others have been through this, that you can live with it too.

Dr. Campo says he discusses poetry with his patients as a way to share a different perspective on the experience of illness: “You’re engaging the patient and letting them know you see them as a whole person and not just a lump in a breast.” He has even been known to share a book of poetry among the resource materials he compiles.

Poetry as medicine has a history that stretches back to ancient times – poetry was used for healing by the priests who would consult Apollo, the god of medicine and poetry, at the sacred site of Delphi.  In tribal cultures, shamans and witch doctors chanted poetry for the well-being of the tribe or individual.

All healing is a road back home to our original selves and I believe that poetry is one of the greatest means of finding our way back.

Tell me what are some of the poems which have brought a healing solace to your life?