Working Those Poetry Muscles

New Year's resolutions time. Of course. Of course.

And just as we're reving up to drag out lazy selves back to the gym (well I am, at least), poet Ruth Padel begs us not to bother. The road to feeling better about yourself is paved with obsessive intentions about bodily fitness, she notes, but how much better it is to build up our muscles for poetry instead, for a more lasting feel-good factor.

Poetry ... is not only good for you, and protects us against meaninglessness: by the pleasure it gives in its artifice, images and imagination, and in the little nudgy sensual relationships between words and sounds that hint at new ideas, poetry augments and reflects our delight in the world. ... Reading poetry truthfully, responsibly, fortifies your own individual inwardness. Poetry is the art of concentration not just from the poet's point of view (chucking out what you don't need, boiling down the words, the thoughts), but from the reader's. It makes you concentrate on things that matter to you inside. ... If you bring to a good poem all you are, it expands your understanding of yourself and the world. ... In an era when outward things such as bodies, shopping and diet are so obsessing, six lines of these verbal artefacts can let you see your own life and experience with new eyes. That "place for the genuine" opened up by poetry is in yourself. If you're pondering new year resolutions about health and happiness, joining the gym is not in the same league.

Nice try, Ruth, but I'm going to aim for both physical and poetic ... improvement, even if not perfection, this year.

To add to my list of resolutions then: to buy and read more poetry and discover new favourites. And write about them on our poetry blog, Puisy-Poesy, which has made me think a great deal this year about what poetry works for me and what doesn't. (And I will hope to persuade a few more of you to send in a contribution.)

And to get writing more myself. Plans are in place. More news on this later. Promise.

Freedom Writers Project

Brian from my writing class sent me this link to this BBC article about a writing project in a Philadelphia school which has completely changed the lives of inner-city teenagers.

Trey McCloud, 14, once refused to bring a pen to class but now has a passion for writing. ... (he) says he gets upset a lot and "breaks down". But when he reads aloud to his fellow classmates, he feels respect. Writing helps him release anger that he has been "storing up". And it has turned him around academically, his teacher Mr Galbraith says: "Trey showed the most rapid development of any student I've had, and that's after 13 years in the business."

It's inspiring stuff. So inspiring that Hollywood apparently wants in on it! Yet the BBC article barely scratches the surface of what is a truly wondrous story about the power of writing to reclaim and transform lives.

The Freedom Writing Project was born when an idealistic new teacher called Erin Gruwell decided to do something different with her class of alienated and so-called "unteachable" students who:

...mocked Erin's efforts and bet on how long she would last. Then, one day, Erin intercepted a student's racial caricature. Furious, she invoked the racism that led to the Holocaust. Receiving only blank stares, she realized the students had never heard of the Holocaust. But when she asked how many of them had been shot at, almost every student raised his or her hand.

Erin dispensed with the textbooks and brought in books by teens who had lived through racism and warfare, such as Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic. This time, the students made a powerful emotional connection. With Erin, they began to document their own lives in individual, anonymous diaries. They called themselves the "Freedom Writers," to honor the Civil Rights activists known as the Freedom Riders. As they wrote, the class made a firm and lasting commitment to change.

And change they did. Every single one of her 150 students made it to college. Some of them became journalists, teachers and writers.

The project has a website which is well worth exploring. And a book about the project is due for release in 2007.

Poetry and Healing

I was intrigued by Christina Patterson's proposition in the Independent the other day that poetry might be the new prozac.

The article brought together several areas that I'm interested in. Poetry of course. Then the link between depressive illness and creativity, and the use of creative writing as therapy.

Patterson argues that whilst poetry is increasingly being heralded as a panacea for many ills including depression, it doesn't actually seem to have helped mentally-ill poets like Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, or Sylvia Plath.

But here I think that here she's got her argument back to front: surely the desire to write poetry is often a symptom of manic-depressive illness, as sufferers tend to delight in language play (punning, rhyming, repetition, torrents of words) and have a sense of divine inspiration. (Patterson might note that Lowell was saved in the end, not by poetry, but by lithium.)

But there is no doubt that writing poetry is good for the health! Patterson cites a joint study between the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Department of Health which suggests that writing poetry boosted levels of immunoglobin A (i.e. the antibody that helps you fend off illness). Write poetry and you won't fall sick so often, is the bottom line.

I decided to google up the other studies she mentions and found much interesting stuff along the way:

Dr Robin Philipp, an occupational physician at the Bristol Royal Infirmary studied the therapeutic properties of poetry writing over several years and found that writing poetry can lift depression in nearly three-quarters of cases:

The study, found 70 per cent of sufferers felt better writing poems and eight per cent improved so much they came off anti-depressants. ... Researchers believe writing poetry forces people to confront their emotions, an essential process in overcoming mental torment. ... Poetry helped them articulate disordered thoughts.

There's plenty of other poetry-in-healthcare projects listed on the Poetry Society website if you want to read further.

The Poetry in the Waiting Room Project is an interesting initiative based on the premise that reading poetry is good for your health. Small poetry pamplets are supplied to doctors' waiting rooms and readers are encouraged to keep them. As Patterson points out, it is difficult to substantiate the health benefits from such an approach. But I think that even without the health benefits, getting poetry into the hands of the population at large is no bad thing and could lead to an addiction! (Never mind the patients, this initiative just might be good for poetry!)

I do agree with Patterson's conclusion that poetry for healing is not the same thing as poetry for art. But perhaps in rare cases the two things could overlap? ...

Related posts:

Touched with Fire
Obituary for Egolf
Creative Writing as Therapy

Creative Writing as Therapy

Apparently you have to go and pick up copies of MPH's free Quill magazine yourself these days, but the little magazine has grown a little thicker, has more articles and is printed on much nicer paper this time round.



This issue has my article on the benefits of creative writing (p29). Among other things I touch on is the use of creative writing as therapy.

One very interesting fact is that in one study by the Academy of Management in the UK, unemployed professionals who were given the opportunity to write about their thoughts and feelings surrounding job loss, were found to be reemployed much more quickly than those who did not!

Creative writing honours the individual and boosts self-esteem, and writing workshops around the world have given a voice to battered women, the bereaved, the elderly, the sick (particularly cancer sufferers), and disadvantaged groups.

Would love to run "writing for therapy" classes and wonder if anyone out there knows of a group who would benefit? I have done some reading about the running of such groups and have been in touch with a woman who has run groups for cancer sufferers in the States. The most inspiring text I've read on the subject is a chapter called Using Writing to Empower the Silenced in
Writing Alone and With Others by Pat Schneider who runs course for low-income women. Many of her former course participants have in turn gone on to teach the same courses to other women, and some have had their work published. And just claiming for themselves the space and freedom to write gave these women the strength and encouragement to find other ways of turning their lives around. Inspiring stuff!