Poetic Medicine Information

Poetic Medicine at the UCSF MERI Center

“Poetry is simply speaking the truth. Each of us has a truth as unique as our own fingerprints”
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, from Intro to Poetic Medicine by John Fox

The practice of “poem making” offers a means to express the metaphors and meaning of the suffering and the joys we experience in ourselves, and bear witness to in others. Poetry can be a salve for the heart and soul. It is a way of speaking what is true in our hearts, something often difficult to access without a creative spark. Listening to and writing poetry in community can provide that spark. We often think of the creative process as a solo act. We might imagine poets and artists in their studios, alone with their “muse.” However, poetry can also be about community. Allowing thoughts and feelings to be translated into words, written down, and shared in community is a powerful ritual of trust, inspiration, and connection.

The UCSF MERI Center facilitates three different poetic medicine groups: Loss, Losing, & Loosening, Poetic Medicine for the Wounded Healer, and Food for Thought. Through these sessions we have created an amazing community that spans the globe. Take a peek:

All Poetic Medicine sessions include:

  • Creating a safe environment for participants to express themselves and get to know each other
  • Listening to poems read out loud and understanding how they make us feel
  • Using specific words or “prompts” to encourage our own “poem-making”
  • Sharing our poetic explorations
  • Connection to our own creativity and to community

Making poems can:

  • Surprise us
  • Allow expression of deep and often untapped feelings in creative ways
  • Guide our own healing journey

PLEASE join us in using poetry as self-care as we explore our feelings, fears and hopes, together.

Food for Thought and Loss, Losing and Loosening are open groups that meet weekly. Come once, come every week; there is no commitment to join every week.

Food for Thought

Thursdays, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific

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Weekly Prompts on Google Drive

Loss, Losing, & Loosening

Tuesdays, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific

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In these sessions Redwing Keyssar, RN, Author & Poet, and Dani Chammas, MD &  Poet, guide us in using poem-making to explore the grief of any losses in our lives  and to find healing in our creativity and connections to each other.

Loss, Losing & Loosening is a term coined by Eric Poche, Poet and Teacher

Loss is an irrevocable event.

Losing is the acknowledgement of the pain of the loss.

Loosening is the Integration of the loss in one’s life.
 

Weekly Prompts on Google Drive

Poetic Medicine for the Wounded Healer

4th Thursday of the month, 12:00 - 1:00 PM

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“The wounds are the places where light enters.”
Rumi

Many of us, whether we identify as being in the “healing arts” or not, have wounds that we understand as the foundation of our own ability to heal and to have compassion for others.  In these sessions we will open to whatever it is we consider our own “wounded places” and allow our poem-making to be part of our healing process. 

 

 

“Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal.” 
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Author
 

Weekly Prompts on Google Drive

 

Poetic Medicine Anthologies

The Poems that Flow Through Us #1

The Poems that Flow Through Us #2

The Poems that Flow Through Us #3

The Poems that Flow Through Us #4

The Poems that Flow Through Us #5

The Poems that FlowThrough Us #6

If you would like hard copies of any of our anthologies, please make a donation of $25/copy and email us at [email protected] with your order and mailing address.