January 14, 2025
Dear Poetic Medicine Friend,
Welcome to this new year. I greet you with gladness. How can I best affirm that in this moment, you are appreciated? There is a way we are not distant. Our goals, prayers and poems in the present and for the future are at once unique, mutual and close at hand.
Your Appreciated Voice
I hope for 2025 to be a time where your appreciated voice, my appreciated voice, the many voices welcomed via The Institute for Poetic Medicine, where all voices, flourish.
flour·ish
(flûr′ĭsh, flŭr′-)
v. flour·ished, flour·ish·ing, flour·ish·es
v.intr.
1. To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive: The crops flourished in the rich soil.
2. To do or fare well; prosper:
3. To be in a period of highest productivity, excellence, or influence: a poet who flourished in the tenth century.
4. To make bold, sweeping movements: The banner flourished in the wind.
(source, The Free Dictionary)
Yes to your luxuriant thriving, yes to faring well and prospering, yes to excellence and influence, yes to our boldness and sweeping movements.
This banner flourishing in the wind, reminds me of a poem I wrote when I turned twenty-eight. I was about to step much closer to my calling, the practice of poetry-as-healer. I didn’t know that exactly at-the-time but I was welcoming what I loved most dearly. Poetry-as-healer was just over the horizon.
Here is a portion of that poem:
Lift up the banner of your heart boldly
and commit your very next step
to what you love most dearly.
Such a banner is for the greatness
of wildflowers kissing their way delicately
through glaciers, for the beauty
of the mountaintop from which your soul
undoubtedly has gazed.
I Am Lifting the Banner of Courage and Creativity
I, personally, am going to raise that banner higher in 2025. During this world-wide time of climate crisis and political upheaval what could be better than to bring into focus a banner that is waving with courage and creativity? In this perilous time, these are my watchwords: courage and creativity.
If we can stay awake and lift-up our singular qualities of courage and unique expressions of creativity, I am confident democracy and goodwill will be remembered, sustained and continue to flourish.
Poetry as a Tool for Wellness Flourishes in Singapore
Speaking of world-wide, in February 2024 I traveled to Singapore for two weeks bringing poetic medicine to the medical staff at the National Cancer Center Singapore, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, and Assisi Hospice. I felt blessed to engage with all these voices just waiting to flourish! Each participant – within this medical setting – began to write, began to speak, and it was astonishing.
One such person coming forward with her poetic voice was Siti Nur Hanim Binte Buang. She is a Consultant in the Paediatric Palliative Care Service in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. This wonderful photograph of us was taken in the adolescent activity room on the paediatric oncology ward in KKWCH. We were having a quick huddle before our planned poetry session with Siti’s patient, Belle.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the poem-making sessions where I was inspired to reach deeper within myself to find the artistry we all have in the form of words, colours, and thoughts. It was wonderful to hear the sharing of poems and then to witness John at work, encouraging a usually reserved teenage patient to create beautiful strings of words. I look forward to discovering more lessons from poems and poem-making.”
~Siti Nur Hanim Binte Buang
And now, at the generous invitation of Dr. Joanne Ngeow, with the dedicated work of Operations Director Mary Price, and the superb PTW Peer-Facilitator Trainers Sharon Lowe and Bindu Lanka, we are returning online to Singapore to offer a facilitator training opportunity through the Poetry as a Tool for Wellness program. We will offer training and support connecting facilitators in Singapore with those in the United States!
We do this because they long for more.
What Is Happening These Days Through IPM
Do you long for more, too?
I invite you to check-out the goodness we are committed to – and consider joining in: Come play with words! The Institute for Poetic Medicine is a vibrant community keen to be a place where you can find like hearts and minds. Keen to be a place where your exploration of poetry & poem-making can flourish.
We are offering Poetry Circles monthly and multiple training programs this year!
Please visit the www.poeticmedicine.org homepage to see what we are offering each month.
Hurrah for the Recognition of Dear Poet Friends
The Institute offers with our palms pressed together, a bow to our dear friends Naomi Shihab Nye and Jacinta White for their recently received and greatly deserved recognition and awards.
From YES! Weekly about Jacinta:
“The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, in collaboration with the ACGG and the North Carolina Arts Council, honor Artist Support Grantee Jacinta V. White. Jacinta requested funds to support her literature project titled “Unearthed.” This historical novel is based on a character who time travels and finds herself as an Afro Moravian in Salem, NC which is currently Old Salem in Winston-Salem.”
You can learn more with this link: https://www.intothearts.org/post/grants-awarded-to-support-the-work-of-artists-in-a-five-county-triad-region-1
We are so happy to know that Naomi Shihab Nye is recognized by her peers for a life-time of bringing her amazing presence, great love, humor, sense of justice and goodness to the world – along with the treasure of her poems.
The Academy of American Poets announces the Wallace Stevens Award for Lifetime Achievement for 2024 is for Naomi. You can find out more in a rich and courageous statement about Naomi made by Academy Chancellor Afaa Michael Weaver: https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-2024-winners-wallace-stevens-award-and-academy-fellowship
Fire in Los Angeles – We Welcome a Call to Help
What calls to our hearts for deep attention and support is recognition that people – individuals, families, entire communities and businesses are profoundly impacted by wildfires, especially in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Sylmar, Pasadena and the greater LA area.
We add to this harrowing loss and grief all the animals and creatures, pets who are suffering. We include all the people who are part of a wide and vast greater community beyond LA, all other family and friends.
Without trying to leap over grieving, we have faith in the capacity of resilience in each person to hold, embrace and encourage each person to make their way.
We know poetry and poem-making can express and hold and act as a catalyst for both – grief and resilience.
We know that climate crisis is upon all of us – with the hottest days on record for this year – the extremely dry conditions that cause fire to be very wild, and because of climate change, the way the winds are intensifying far beyond a normal level.
We are a world community which means that none of us will escape this. This fire reminds us to get serious about climate risks and, if you feel compelled to speak up and speak out, insisting more recognition of it and that more responsibility is taken to alleviate it, or to make commitments that courageous first responders and fire fighters receive a living wage; IPM can be here to witness your voice, your banner. Programs like Poetry of Nature are here as a way to speak of climate change, Nature, and our connection to it.
As a California-based nonprofit, The Institute for Poetic Medicine will find out how and when we can serve. We will, with love, step forward to bring what we can. We invite you too to help as you can – with whatever compassionate and creative outreach you can deliver.
Personally, I am going to make a donation to World Central Kitchen founded by José Andrés. They do magnificent work in troubled and traumatic situations feeding people around the world. https://wck.org/ Of course, this is one suggestion out of so many. Find where your banner is called to unfurl the help needed.
If I Had to Use One Word
“…if I had to use one word to describe you,
it would be mender.”
~Kathleen Picarelli
In closing, I am going to give a hurrah to the poem Seeking Moon by Kathleen Picarelli. I have known Kathleen for many years and I am delighted to share this poem. This is true – when I asked Kathy for her permission and we agreed to this, she informed me that very day, Monday, January 13th, was a full moon!
Kathleen sent me a beautiful holiday card which contained a moving expression of how poetic medicine makes a difference in her life. She graciously agreed to share part of what she wrote by reading it on camera. I hope you enjoy it.
Please help us “spread the poetic word” by sharing with others in your community.
See you in the days ahead.
Kindness,
John Fox
Read more about the events of the new year in the January 2025 Newsletter.
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