Powerful and exciting, Poetic Medicine illustrates the unique role that poem-making can have in addressing the situations that lead us to renewal in our lives. John Fox's book is designed for readers wanting to tap their creative energy in order to make a difference in the world, including educators, therapists, parents and their children, writers, couples, and the infirm. As the author demonstrates, we all possess the ability to write. This gift enables us to access unlimited spiritual resources that restore our genuine voices and meaning in our lives, while healing and creatively satisfying us. Discussed are numerous stories of people from the author's workshops who exemplify how poetry has aided them I becoming more whole. Parents understand how to use poetry to foster their relationships with their children, recognizing magical bonds that they never knew existed; persons who are ill learn how to come to terms with their diseases; and those who feel helpless in the surrounding world discover the freedom to act and affect real change. With the poetic tools, instruction, and accounts the author supplies in Poetic Medicine, readers can start now to make their own poems while addressing, acknowledging, accepting, and taking charge of their lives.

Poems and commentary by both unknown and famous poets reveal how people from all walks of life have used poem-making to explore matters of concern to us all.

This book explores previously unexamined overlaps between the poetic imagination and the medical mind. It shows how appreciation of poetry can help us to engage with medicine in more intense ways based on ‘de-familiarising’ old habits and bringing poetic forms of ‘close reading’ to the clinic. Bleakley and Neilson carry out an extensive critical examination of the well-established practices of narrative medicine to show that non-narrative, lyrical poetry does different kind of work, previously unexamined, such as place eclipsing time. They articulate a groundbreaking ‘lyrical medicine’ that promotes aesthetic, ethical and political practices as well as noting the often-concealed metaphor cache of biomedicine. Demonstrating that ambiguity is a key resource in both poetry and medicine, the authors anatomise poetic and medical practices as forms of extended and situated cognition, grounded in close readings of singular contexts. They illustrate structural correspondences between poetic diction and clinical thinking, such as use of sound and metaphor. This provocative examination of the meaningful overlap between poetic and clinical work is an essential read for researchers and practitioners interested in extending the reach of medical and health humanities, narrative medicine, medical education and English literature.

Infused with hope, heartbreak, and humor, this book gathers our greatest poets from antiquity to the present, prescribing new perspectives on doctors and patients, remedies and procedures, illness and recovery. A literary elixir, Poetry in Medicine displays the genre's capacity to heal us.

Poetry discovers and speaks a truth ordinary language cannot express. And the passionate message in Finding What You Didn't Lose is that we're all poets--capable of giving voice to such truth. Poet-teacher John Fox reveals how imagery, sound, metaphor, rhythm, and other poetic elements can he us tell our inner story, heal psychological wounds, discover spiritual connection, and develop the rich creative imagination that lies within us all. Transcending the traditional academic approach to poetry writing, Finding What You Didn't Lose deals with craft but, more importantly, guides readers to explore their deepest feelings and express their own unique insights through the incomparable language of poetry. Through an intermingling of inventive exercises and illustrative poems--ranging from Nobel Prize winners to first-time poets--readers are inspired to add their own distinct voice to a world fellowship of poets. For those who already write poetry, and the many more who want to, this book is the key to finding what you never lose: your natural inclination to express who you are through the making of poems.

This accessible book explores the therapeutic possibilities of poetry and stories, providing techniques for facilitating personally relevant and growth-enhancing sessions. The author provides ideas for writing activities that emerge from this discussion, and explains how participants can create their own poetic and narrative pieces.