Newsletter

this is not a small voice
There are moments in life—especially for children and young people—when speaking up feels daunting, when silence seems easier, safer, quieter. But poetry reminds us that voices are never small. Every word carries weight, every expression has the power to shift a classroom, a community, even the world. This Is Not a Small Voice is a stunning new anthology that celebrates the richness of language and the courage it takes to be heard. While it shines a spotlight on Black poetry, its heartbeat speaks to all of us: the call to claim... Read more...
and love is proved in the letting go
The end of summer often brings a shift in the air—not just in the weather, but in the rhythms of our homes. For many parents, this is the season of the “empty nest,” when children leave for university, work, or new lives of their own. The house, once alive with daily chaos, can suddenly feel spacious and strangely quiet.Empty Nest Syndrome is not a diagnosis, but a tender ache, a mixture of pride, loss, and re-discovery. It is the silence that reminds us of what we’ve nurtured, and the invitation... Read more...
time and light are kinds of love
Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of The Emergency Poet anthologyThis September marks a very special milestone for us. On the 25th, The Emergency Poet – An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology will be reissued, ten years after it first made its way into the hands and hearts of readers.First published in 2015, the anthology quickly became (in poetry terms) a bestseller, with over 30,000 copies sold. It offered a new kind of poetic medicine — a carefully prescribed dose of verse for those feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and in need of solace and reassurance. Its success helped... Read more...
one by one, we were called in
No one spoke –the host, the guest,the white chrysanthemums.Ryota Oshima (1718 – 1787)As the summer leans into its softer, slower days and the shadows lengthen, at the Poetry Pharmacy we find ourselves thinking about the value to be discovered in stillness — and how hard and beautiful it is to be in real silence.These are not always easy companions. In the rush of daily life, stillness can feel unproductive, even uncomfortable. But at the Poetry Pharmacy, we know it’s often in these quiet spaces — these pauses — where something begins to shift and we allow in change.We might call them... Read more...
16/08/2025- light as moths amongst branches
Your Poetry Pharmacists have been observing a marked outbreak of Late-Summer Listlessness across the UK population. Symptoms include: staring blankly out of train windows, an irresistible urge to lie in the garden with one shoe off, and forgetting what day it is entirely.Fear not. We have prepared highly concentrated tonics of verse to treat seasonal listlessness. Dosage: one poem at dawn with a cup of tea, another at dusk with  cooling drink. Side effects may include sudden contentment, peculiar bursts of gratitude, and the ability to watch clouds without guilt.This week’s... Read more...
09/08/2025- poetry, and you, and solitude
 For the overwhelmed, the underpaid, and the unheard—this week’s prescription is a potent dose, with its focus on A Room of One’s Own. We've taken inspiration from the genius of Virginia Woolf, with occasional bursts of righteous fury at the patriarchy. Woolf's essay and our little bottle, contain antidotes to the silenced voices, with a strong hint of creative rebellion. Side effects may include sudden clarity, inconvenient truth-telling, and an irrepressible urge to write.Woolf’s famous essay argued that a woman needs money and a room of her own if she is to write, or to live a creative... Read more...
05/08/25 - signs, music
There has long been a creative tension between spoken word poetry and the printed poem, rooted in questions of performance, permanence, and audience. Spoken word thrives in the immediacy of the live moment—it is usually rhythmic, embodied, often political, and made to be heard. The printed poem has been considered to be a moment in private, inviting reflection and re-reading. Spoken word may risk losing something vital when lifted off the stage and fixed in type, while page poetry can struggle to carry the full emotional weight without the presence of... Read more...
29/07/25- the answer is often immediate and clear
In this week's newsletter we're celebrating World Friendship Day. Established by The United Nations in 2011, the 30 July every year is a day to mark the role that friendship plays in promoting peace, bridging communities, and fostering mutual understanding between peoples and cultures.Friendship gives shape to feelings of belonging; offers refuge in the chaos of life, and affirms that we are not, in fact, alone in our ways of thinking, feeling, or being. Friendships of depth and meaning expand our perspective, stretch our capacity for empathy, and allow us to be ''therapeutically daft'' with one another; to... Read more...
22/07/2025- There's a rhythm out there
Here in the UK, schools have just broken up for the summer. For children it's a time of great excitement, a long exhale after months of early mornings, assemblies, homework, and hard work. Now begin six weeks of well-deserved rest, the promise of adventures in nature, and the kind of spacious freedom that only summer can bring.For many of us, this time of year brings a sweet nostalgia — remembering our own childhood summers, the endless light-filled days and scraped knees, and now, as parents or grandparents, watching the next generation... Read more...
12/07/2025- let time go slow as moss
Welcome to this week’s Poetry Pharmacy newsletter. On Thursday 10th July it was publication date for the latest two books in our Poetry Prescription series - First Aid and Inspiration On InspirationThere are moments—quiet, quick, or chaotic—when something shifts within us. A spark or the feeling of a sharp intake of breath. There is something miraculous brushing against the ordinary. Inspiration, from the Latin inspirare, meaning to breathe into, once implied the gods themselves were at work, whispering into our lungs the courage to create or to act.  In the Poetry Pharmacy, we see inspiration not... Read more...
05/07/2025- Sit. Feast on your life.
This week, the news we're very excited about, is the publication of numbers 5 and 6 in our Poetry Prescription series- edited to match each of the broad sections of our bookshops. There's Comfort, Words for Love, Wild Remedy and Becoming, and now Inspiration and First Aid. "First Aid is an important anthology for me; they have all been a wonderful pleasure to edit -and it's been quite an intense piece of work to edit 8 books in a year; but this one is special. This little book includes the poems that I have most often prescribed over the years and have held... Read more...
29/06/2025- filled with the gladness of living
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.  As the warm summer evenings invite plans for garden get-togethers and barbecues, we have been reflecting on the importance of friends and family and of those closest to us. We love the poem The Table by Turkish Edip Cansever, which uses the image of a table as a metaphor for a life richly lived. On his table, are placed memories and metaphors, the real and the abstract. It’s a poem that means a great deal to to us at... Read more...