Guest Author - Wollie Woehler

How does poetry as a therapy for Neuromuscular Diseases differ from any other type of poetry? The focus of poetry as therapy is self-expression and growth of the individual whereas the focus of poetry as art is the poem itself. The same tools and techniques; language, rhythm, metaphor, sound, and image apply to poetry as art as well as poetry as therapy.

The word therapy comes from the Greek word therapies meaning to nurse or cure through dance, song, poem and drama, that is the expressive arts. According to the Greeks Asclepius, the god of healing was the son of Apollo, god of poetry, medicine and the arts.

Though poetry as therapy is a relatively new development in the expressive arts, it is as old as the first chants sung around the tribal fires of primitive people.

The chant-song-poem is what heals the heart and soul. The word psychology refers to it as psyche means soul and logos means speech or word.
According to certain records there was a Roman physician named Soranus in the first century A.D. who prescribed poetry and drama for his patients. Unfortunately the link between poetry and medicine has not been well documented.

The first hospital in the American colonies to care for the mentally ill, Pennsylvania Hospital founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin, facilitated several Additional treatments for their patients including reading, writing and the publishing of their writings in a newspaper called The Illuminator. "Bibliotherapy" is a more common term than poetry therapy, which became popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This literally means the use of literature to serve or help.

Healing Components of Poetry

"Poetry is the response of our innermost being to the ecstasy, the agony and the all-embracing mystery of life. It is a song, or a sigh, or a cry, often all of them together."
--Charles Angoff (Lerner, 1994)

Through poetry links are established between the individual via its distilled experience, its rhythms, and its words to another in a way which no other form of communication ever can.

Poetry also helps to ease the experience of loneliness which we all share at times. The most dreaded loneliness can befall us at parties or functions with many people around us but where we feel we do not belong there and cannot communicate satisfactorily. This often leads to the birth of a poem on a serviette, cigarette box, paper tissue or whatever is readily available.

"I believe that a poem is an emotional-intellectual-physical construct that is meant to touch the heart of the reader that it is meant to be re-experienced by the reader. I believe that a poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms? I also believe that a poem is a noise and that noise is shaped."
--Stephen Dobyns (Dobyns, 1997)

"A poem does not have to rhyme, but it must have rhythm. Mostly when people speak from their heart, there is usually a rhythm, subtle though it may be. Rhythm comes in many forms in a poem and often carries with it repressed feelings integrating chaotic inner and outer events into one’s own experience."
--Merlot, 1985.

May 2008 is the year in which you will discover the poet within yourself. Experience the therapeutic investment you make in your life by putting pen to paper, or fingers to computer keyboard, and let us share in your poetic life journey.