Poetic Medicine

A therapeutic and holistic approach to reading and writing poetry, Poetic Medicine practice harnesses poetry’s unique ability to circumvent the rational, prose-oriented brain, allowing people to write from the heart. Poetry is one of humanity’s oldest art forms, and belongs to everyone. 

Poetic medicine is a practice, like yoga, meditation, or other forms of self care and self exploration. It is a tool to help us process our emotions, learn more about who we are, and grow as individuals. 

Poetic medicine is a two-part process: the first is the writing of the poem; the second is the sharing of the poem. Sharing our poetry can feel scary or vulnerable, but it allows us to experience the healing power of “being seen,” and gives us the opportunity to practice holding space for others without judgment or criticism. 

Poetic medicine is not about writing a “good” poem—because what does that even mean, really? This is not to say that beauty and “artistic merit” don’t emerge during the process—they quite often do. But the goal is self-expression and healing, not making others “ooh” and “ahh” over your work.

For this issue we invite you to read Susan O’Connell, who offers four poems in response to prompts from Poetic Medicine sessions. In our next section, Cyra S. Dumitru presents a sequence of poems from writers in the Soul’s Journey Poetry Circle. These poets are: Jane Marie Grovijahn, Christina Hernandez, Sarah Johnson, Variya Kelly, Peter Matteson, Mariya Ortiz, Darren J. Poidevin, Karen O. Poidevin, and Monica Snow.

Susan O’Connell

Poetry takes her stand

Dismissive literal voices, devoid of inclusion and heart,
draw me into the shade away from poetry.

Yet even in the shadows my imagination lingers,
longing to express life’s lyrical flow.

Poetry swings her legs as she sits on a red brick wall
gazing at glistening stars gliding across a charcoal sky.

My poems respond, painting papyrus with indigo dye,
orange spice, and scents of cinnamon.

Constellations of light and color emerge.

Poetry invites me to ink shame onto paper where it belongs,
the muddled colors curling away from a feeding source,

Mercifully freed

Poetry takes her broad horsehair brush,
dips it in yellow and pulls the pigment

across my face to take her stand
as one of my original voices.

Poetry lets a silent
ground lie fallow,

leaves a bird’s nest
untouched.

My heart recognizes
herself in the

spaces left
between.

I wrote ‘Poetry takes her stand” in response to a Poetic Medicine Circle training by John Fox. The prompt was: “Poetry / speaks and listens:” —lines from “Between What I See and What I Say” by Octavio Paz.

Even a tree grows in the shade (after Stephen Levine)

I survived like a tree growing in the shade
I said nothing when I meant no
I said frozen when I meant terrorized
I said feeling ok when I meant numb
I said yes please, I meant please god just this once offer kindness
I said thank you, I meant I dodged a bullet
I said no one can get me, I meant that’s what I felt even without a trigger
I say it’s in the past, I mean it is my companion
I say will you listen?  I mean I want you to understand
I say this is complex, I mean I recognize generational pain
I say I forgive; I mean I feel compassion
I say I love, I mean miracles happen, I can love

“Even a tree grows in the shade” was my response to a Poetic Medicine Circle titled “Poetic Medicine and Social Justice” offered by Lisha Garcia and E.D. Watson.

A Fall Moon Rises

“Mother, the moon is dancing in the courtyard of the dead” — Federico Garcia Lorca

A Fall Moon rises 

just after the equinox
9th moon of the year 

when black crows harvest green walnuts
from trees in the ravine 

A Fall Moon rises 

her yellow face floats
in purple clouds of twilight 

as night creatures sing songs
to skies of magic and mystery 

A Fall Moon rises 

pulls me outside
like gravity 

as lunar light streams through
Sycamore’s dark silhouette. 

A Fall Moon rises 

I stand lone witness to her beauty-
such silence and dignity. 

This Fall Moon rises, 

I think of how when I am gone
Moon will still rise bright and true 

her light touching into that place
under the Sycamore trees where my daughter 

has placed my ashes,
which still glow in response to 

A Fall Moon rising.

“A Fall Moon Rises” was written in response to a Poetic Medicine Circle on aging. 

Aging invites deep reflection and a reconciliation of our understanding of life and death. This is not always an easy process in a culture that often doesn’t support this exploration well. Yet, there is something powerful being asked of us in the process; to enter life more fully—recognizing the preciousness of our embodied life, and how it will one day go on without us.

Here I was writing in response to the beautiful line: by Lorca from the poem, “Dance of the Santiago Moon.”

Kindling for the flame in our heart 

Sometimes I hear his gray claws
click-click-clicking on glass door
as he tries to break through to freedom.

    I relent as he knows I will, opening the door.

He glides to lemon tree beside brick wall
where a black cat’s ashes are buried,
hallowed ground.

Curls up in a puddle of molten gold,
last patch of sunlight shining through
a green canopy ablaze with light.

I sat there with my mother long ago,
her artist hands sketching round lemons
dangling plump like ornaments from the tree.

Our quietness and her images
slowly etched onto paper
soft ground for yesterday’s pain.

How seldom we notice grace
unfolding in the moment, yet
it continues to flow towards us.

What finally inspires us to turn
towards the numinous woven within life,
kindling for the flame in our heart?
Like the Phoebe birds, perched
in a row on wire above me, turn
their plump chests towards setting sun,

Feathered bodies radiant with light
absorbing and reflecting celestial gifts,
transformed, simply, by their Presence.

The prompt for this poem, “Kindling for the flame in our heart,” was “There Is a Secret One Inside of Us …” by Kabir. This quote from Kabir’s poem was offered in a poetic medicine training session with John Fox. I came back to it long after that session and found that it spurred a memory about how “The Secret One Inside of me” awakens when I am immersed in nature. My mystic heart and body respond to this quiet and simple contemplative process. Recognizing this and writing poetry offered me insight and healing.