Why Poetry is Important: The Power of Poetry Therapy

Poetry has been around for centuries, going back to the 2nd century. Poetry has a tendency of helping sooth the pain, suffering of mental illness and so much more. In “Will a poem a day keep the Doctor away?”, talks about the use of poetry and how today it continues to help people, especially women. This article is by Linda Wasmer Andrews. So, I come to say that poetry is beneficial to helping people with mental health. Poetry can guide people to jungle their mental illness into the words they hear and write. While as other people may argue that poetry is not beneficial because it can bring up old memories that cause the mental breakdown. Poetry is a guidance to the people that have conflicts with their selves or others.

So, what is poetry therapy? Poetry Therapy is the use of the written or spoken word to further therapeutic goals and enhance the well-being of individuals, families, couples, or groups. A type of expressive arts therapy, poetry therapy promotes growth and healing through expressive writing activities and through the reading and facilitated discussion of literary material. The term, poetry therapy encompasses journal therapy, therapeutic storytelling, film, as well as performance poetry. In the article “Will a poem a day keep the doctor away” it states, “Today, some therapists use poetry reading or writing to facilitate healing or promote personal growth in their clients. And many more English teachers exhort their students to express themselves in a poem.” This quote is saying that poetry is more than just a therapeutic method it’s a teaching method for teachers.

In the text Linda started to talk about the first piece of writing, that she had sold was a poem “Elegy for the loss” back in 1982. At the time Linda was going through a mental and very devastating part of her life because she just had lost a baby due to a miscarriage. So, by her writing this poem made her get through it emotionally. However, when her poem was published, she wasn’t the only one in taken by the pieces she had wrote, it also spoke to a lot of other women who injured the same circumstances. In the article it states, “...this poem was my way of mourning it. Apparently, the poem spoke to other women as well, because it has been widely republished ever since...” This quote is saying that poetry is help people that go through such tragic thing in take on different writing piece to help them heal. So, this does help my argument of whether poetry helps mental illness. So, as I say to an instinct because the memories are still there, but the words are guiding people to live on.

Who is Linda Wasmer Andrews? Linda is a writer that partakes in health, medicine, mental health, and psychology. Her articles have been published on major websites and in national magazines. She's also author and co-author of 15 books for groups of all ages. Linda also attended the University of New Mexico between 1975 – 1979. She also has a master’s degree in health psychology. Now Linda has a blog pertaining to Minding the Body for Psychology Today. She also tends to write frequently for StayWell and other wellness content providers. Linda also partners with brands, like Mattress Firm and Philips Sleep and Respiratory Care, to create health and well-being content that engages the audiences they want to reach.

Another thing bought up in the article is that over the past 200 years research has proven that poetry for mental illness is a good effect on people with mental illness. In the article it states, “Over the past 25 years, more than 200 studies have investigated the mental and physical health benefits of expressive writing. This research is rooted in the belief that disclosing emotions - a core component of much psychotherapy - is beneficial even without the aid of a therapist. Studies have shown that disclosing challenging experiences in personal writing can lead to improvements in a wide range of health outcomes, such as self-reported moods and symptoms, doctor visits, immune cell counts, liver enzyme levels, and antibody response to vaccines. These studies have generally looked at structured, narrative prose, however, so it's unclear whether waxing poetic would have similar effects.” This will also help me because this quote is not just saying that it helps with mental health but also physical health to, and poetry shown in statistics that poetry can help reframe thoughts about a difficult or challenging experience, especially when multiple poems share the same point of view from different angels.

What is the issue concerning poetry? The issue that continues to pop up in poetry history.... poetry is not worth being taught because it’s not beneficial to the young minds and many others and figuring out a poem’s meaning are difficult, and Reading poetry is hard work. However, I fight that poetry is beneficial to the young mind. And how it been shown that people use poetry to cope with traumatic situations: by writing certain poems, hearing them or reading poems people have posted. However, not everyone in the poetry audience seen poetry as a negative thing. poetry is words that’s helping young people and others to get their story out. It also helps educational for helping people develop their skills. Another thing is poetry has significant audience pertaining to people that's incarcerated and by its words giving a person body certain.

One way why poetry is beneficial is because it can be used as a therapeutic mechanism to help cope with traumatic situations. In the article “Using poetry to heal” it states poetry therapy is used in three major domains... The receptive-prescriptive uses preexisting poetry or literature to elicit responses. The expressive-creative gives a client or group the chance to write, whether it’s poetry or letters. “This is an effective way to cope with spontaneous tragedy,” he says. “There’s a lot of hard research about the health effects of writing — for example, in the writings of James Pennebaker.” A third usage is the symbolic ceremonial, which is connected to the power of ritual or symbols. “If someone is struggling with a loss, that person might write a letter to the person who’s gone,” Mazza explains. “It also works with community tragedies. A lot of people wrote and drew after Columbine, but it became ceremonial when they posted it.” So, from this article it’s saying that poetry is helping people go through traumatic situations just by the words that’s being written on a piece of paper to help express the pain they have experienced.

However, poetry is more than healing. Poetry is a type language that speaks to people not just mentally but physically also. In other words, saying a person can listen to a poem and be speechless because how well a much they can relate to it. In another article ('How Poetry Helps People to Live Their Lives”) it states, “I believe that poetry began as language did--that the impulse that made it was in fact the beginning of language... It is not primarily concerned with... conveying of information, even with communication, although it may fulfill a succession of purposes... But not always, and not inevitably, whereas prose is always about something if it makes sense at all. Poetry is physical. It enlists the participation of the senses, beginning with the sense of hearing, of vibration, and its pace derives from and attends the body's motions... The source that rises unbroken from the unsayable speaks to us of the impulse and mystery that we share with every living creature. The urge is measureless, like the unknown itself, and in the end remains, by nature, unsayable.” In other words, this quote is saying that poetry doesn't always have a meaning it can be a poem that a person can listen to a poem and be speechless because how well a much they can relate to it.

As poetry been coming more into the new era so have mass incarceration. And written word helps a lot of people that’s in a prison speak because they voice is hard to be heard. And after a while they are afraid to speak up. So basically, they are using their state of mind. In this article it states, “.... To approach another’s writing with a genuine desire to learn... So, when people become incarcerated, we often lose their voices, and because we lose their voices, we lose a sense of the fact that these are people with stories far more complicated than the two-dimensional narratives about them would have you believe.” This quote is helping me say the poetry is a good thing because people that’s behind bars can have that literature aspect of learning and be able to use those skills once they get out.

Another thing poetry is also good for the teaching of young minds. In the article it states, “Sixty-eight percent of the respondents who studied poetry in school rated that experience as mostly favorable (80 percent rated their out-of-school experiences as “mostly positive”). Twenty-seven percent had a neutral experience with studying poetry in school and 5 percent rated their in-school experiences as “mostly negative”. The current poetry audience was significantly more likely to report that their in-school experiences were “mostly positive” than were potential members.” This quote is saying that most of the kids in school thought poetry was beneficial but the others not so much. And that mostly based on two main groups for those who was involved with poetry and the others that may have encountered poetry but wasn’t involved. In the article it states, “Eligible respondents were classified into two major groups – the ‘poetry audience’ and the ‘potential audience’. The Poetry Audience is comprised of those individuals who have read poetry, listened to poetry, or both within the last five years. The Potential Audience consists of those individuals who read for pleasure but have never read or listened to poetry or who have not read or listened to poetry within the last five years.” this is helping me define my issue because people are quick to assume that poetry is not good. But at the same time haven’t taken the chance to endure poetry.

Over the past couple years statistics have showed that poetry is indeed beneficial. But since people are unaware and more uninformed people just tend to say that poetry is not helping them. More saying that poetry is too difficult for a young child to endure. Or for a person to take a poetry because it too difficult to understand. However, if you start the mind of young poetry wouldn’t be as hard to comprehend the meaning behind a poem. Also, things that a teacher may be teaching poetry will give them a better skill set through to learn another concept better. Also helping the mind to intellectually grow from situations that may have occurred. Poetry is not just for one person to use. Poetry is a piece of writing that helps mentally and physically. And as the article been pointing out that pieces of writing tend to expand in a rapid pace if someone is going through that same circumstances of what the poem or piece of writing is talking about. So, how is poetry beneficial and not a troublesome piece of writing that just make the mental health issue worst? When someone or you write poetry, the words tend to form the outcome of what you want to happen at the end. Also helping you look forward instead of looking back.