The Healing Power of Poetry
THE HEALING POWER OF POETRY :
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,
aesthetics 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!
The ancient Oracles at Delphi used the
healing power of poetry, -
Through their various ritualistic chants and
incantations, -
Had tamed many a savage mind into subjugation!
The Roman physician Soranus in the first century
AD,
Had prescribed poetry and drama for his patients
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!
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!
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! @
‘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, -
The rhythm and repetition of words often created
a hypnotic trance, -
Reaching out to those ‘secret places’ and creating a
bridge, -
To that unconscious mind from which poetry springs!
“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” (Robert Frost) #
Foot Notes : - ** Initially poetry was orally recited and also sung to the accompaniment of
the lyre! After the invention of writing it started to develop its own form !
@= The writings of some of these patients were also published in a newspaper titled –‘The
Illuminator”! # Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening”,
was extensively used for poetic therapy!
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Copyright © Raj Nandy | Year Posted 2010
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