DOES IT REALLY WORK?
Inspired by the swathes of lockdown poets filling her social feeds, one writer heads to a words workshop with a difference. Time to consider a new form of self-care?
Can a digital poetry workshop help you heal?
Signing up for a virtual poetry therapy session in late 2020, I didn’t think I needed to be healed. It was more that I was bored and – no doubt influenced by amateur poets sharing stanzas on Instagram – curious to see whether I would still love penning verses as much as I used to in childhood.
I chose a session led by writer, university tutor and certified poetry therapist Victoria Field, whose classes – prices for which range from £10 to £30* – aren’t about producing great works, but using words to release and make sense of emotions. ‘It doesn’t have to rhyme,’ she tells me and three other attendees at the start. ‘This isn’t about literary criticism, but seeing what comes out and what you find out about yourself from that.’
I’d never heard of poetry therapy before my booked-on-a-whim session, but far from a modern wellness gimmick (puppy yoga, anyone?), it’s been around (or at least recorded) since the second century, when Greek doctor Soranus used expressive writing to help patients struggling with mental anguish and distress, and it’s been used as a supplemental therapy in mental health treatment ever since.
One review of studies, led by a team at the University of California, found that both writing and reading poetry – without a therapist – can improve all five components of wellbeing, as defined by American psychologist Professor Martin Seligman: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. The study authors concluded that engaging with poetry was a ‘truly productive activity that is fully capable of positively influencing both our personal and social lives’.
We begin by writing a poem inspired by the current moment. I write about coronavirus and fears about tough months ahead (no shock psychological insights there). Then we take turns to read another poem aloud before Field asks us what images and memories certain words remind us of. (Here, we get into childhoods, past loves – classic therapy territory.)
In the final part of the session, we have 16 minutes to write our own poem, inspired by the phrase: ‘More and more I have come to admire.’ The words spilled out: the fresh herbs my boyfriend planted days before; his struggles with anxiety and panic attacks triggered by family problems and the tensions of lockdown; how his eyes lit up when he saw shoots poke through the soil.
When I read my poem aloud, I cried the whole way through. I was mortified, but everyone congratulated me for ‘releasing my emotions’. I identified sadness, confusion and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, all of which I realised I’d been keeping inside so I could support my boyfriend. After hearing the other attendees’ poems,
I finished the session tired – but feeling lighter, calm, quiet. That evening, I showed my boyfriend the poem and shared what it made me understand about my own feelings. Not only was my session an effective way of accessing these emotions – it provided a simple way to communicate them, too. We agreed he should buy more plants and that I would write more poetry, and I reminded myself how freeing it could feel to make space for my own emotions.
I now practise poetry therapy daily: setting aside five minutes each evening to write, using a feeling or thought from the day as my prompt. Externalising my emotions – be they about missing my family or the joy of the lighter evenings – makes them easier to deal with, somehow. It’s so part of my routine now that I won’t be booking in for another session. However, if you’re looking for a fresh way to support your emotional health, I’d recommend that you do.