Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making

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.

The many books about how to write poetry often fail because they stress structure and technique, contributing to the assumption that you can't teach anyone to be a poet. Fox takes a different approach. A certified poetry therapist, he uses poetry as a mode of healing. Fox works with children, seniors, people in life transition or suffering life-threatening illness, and others. Clearly, he succeeds. His work shows the aspiring poet how to give birth to poetry and how to cultivate and harvest its value to the writer's healing process. Despite Fox's emphasis on poetry as therapy, the student poems are full of fresh expressions and exciting images. Writing of her son, a woman says, "Adam holds the belly of his new plane,/ the light in his eyes a wingspan of possibility." Among the volume's many strengths are its frequent examples. Excellent exercises are included, as are a list of selected readings and a list of resources for learning more about poetry therapy. Highly recommended for public libraries as well as school and academic libraries where arts therapy is studied or practiced.?Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

John Fox, CPT, is a poet, certified poetry therapist, and a lecturer in the Graduate School of Psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, My Hand Touches the Sea and When Jewels Sing (audio tape). John also teaches in the California Poets in the Schools Program. He serves as a vice president on the executive board of the National Association of Poetry Therapy and is a recipient of NAPT's Distinguished Service Award.