Dear Poet friends. After reading Dolly Lama’s poem ‘Poetry Helps Heal’, I was reminded of a poem I composed many years ago titled ‘The Healing Power of Poetry’. This poem is not a work of fiction, but based on reality. Hope you like it, and tell your friends to read the same. Thanks, - Raj, New Delhi.


  THE HEALING POWER OF POETRY:
    KNOWN  AS  ‘BIBLIOTHERAPY’

The word Poetry derives from the Greek word ‘poesis’,
Which means ‘a making’ of a literary art form,
Where language is used for its evocative, aesthetic,
and emotional response.
A poem is an emotional-intellectual-physical construct, -
meant to touch its reader’s heart!
Poetry links one individual to another by its
distilled experience.
Through its rhythm of words and imagery,  -
driving away our inner loneliness!

‘Words are the physicians of the diseased mind’, -
Oceanus  tells Prometheus in ancient Greek
Mythology.
Thus the Oracles at Delphi used the healing power
of poetry, -
Through their various ritualistic chants and
incantations;
And tamed many a savage mind into subjugation!

The Roman physician Soranus in the First Century
AD,
Had prescribed poetry and drama for his patients
who were mentally oppressed;
Tragedy for his maniac patients, and Comedy for
the depressed.
The great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud had clarified,
That it was not he but the Poet, who had discovered
the Subconscious Mind!
Freud went on to say that the human mind is a
poetry-making *****;
Focus of ‘poetry for healing’ is self-expression and
growth of the individual.
Whereas focus of ‘poetry as an art’ becomes the
very poem itself!
But both use the same technique Freud had said;
Words, rhythm, metaphors, sound, and images,
But in the end the result is the same.
The word ‘therapy’ comes from the Greek word
‘therapeia’, -
Meaning to nurse or cure through dance, song,
drama or poetry;
Perhaps the divine way to poetic therapy!
It is therefore not surprising that Asclepius, the
Greek God of Healing,
Is the son of Apollo, the God of Poetry and Medicine!

The first hospital for the mentally ill in the American
Colonies,
Was set up in Pennsylvania in 1751, by Benjamin
Franklin.
Where a number of ancillary treatments were used,
Including the writing of poetry and reading it aloud.
Written by the patients who were mentally ill.  @ (see notes)
‘Bibliotherapy’ was the term used for poetic therapy,
Which had become popular during the Sixties and
the Seventies.
It was also effectively used in Group Therapy,
With patients sharing their feeling and emotions,
Providing a release for their inner pain and tension !
The rhythm and repetition of words often created
a hypnotic trance, -
Reaching out to those ‘secret places’ - creating a
bridge, -
To that unconscious mind from which poetry springs!
Friends, in support of what I have just said let me
quote,
Those immortal lines which Robert Frost once wrote;-
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
  But I have promises to keep,
  And miles to go before I sleep,
  And miles to go before I sleep” # (see notes below)

Foot Notes: ** Initially poetry was ****** recited and also sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. After the invention of  writing, it started to develop its own form. Forms make arrangement out of derangement, harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos!
@= Writings of some of these patients were also published in a newspaper titled “The Illuminator”.
# = Lines quoted above are from Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping by The Woods on A Snowy Evening”, - were extensively
used for poetic therapy at the Hospital.
        All Copy Rights Reserved By the Author Raj Nandy

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