Newsletter

nothing is worth more than this day
Hello and Welcome,And as always, thank you so much for reading. Whether you've been with us for years or have only recently discovered the Poetry Pharmacy, we're so glad you're here. The community that gathers around these newsletters means a great deal to us, and this month there's a small opportunity for you to become part of what we do. This week we're delighted to announce a collaboration with Wee Sparrow Press on a new poetic remedy that will soon be taking its place on the shelves of our pharmacy. Inspired by this collaboration, this week we're trying... Read more...
wait then just a little while longer
Hello and welcome to our newsletter.Here in Bishop’s Castle, we’re lucky enough to have the most beautiful pub garden at The Castle Hotel, right at the top of the hill, with far-reaching views across the Shropshire Hills and into Wales. We love this season in the bookshop. On warm Friday evenings, after closing up, we sometimes wander over together for a glass of Pimm’s, sit out on the grass, and get to know one another a little better outside the rhythms of work.It’s those sorts of moments that have led us... Read more...
But still, like air, I’ll rise
  Feminist Book Fortnight (FBF), coordinated by Books on the Rise and running from 14th–28th May, is an annual bookseller-led celebration of feminist and radical books across independent bookshops in the UK. It is a space for conversation, curiosity, solidarity, and the many different voices and experiences that feminism holds. Books have always helped us to imagine fairer worlds and to better understand one another’s lives. They can challenge, comfort, provoke, and connect us across borders and generations. But FBF is not only a celebration of feminist literature - it is also a... Read more...
in the silk light unsure of itself
This week at the Poetry Pharmacy we’re turning our attention to one of life’s most complicated and fascinating subjects: ourselves. Our featured book is Know Yourself  from The School of Life, a thoughtful and beautifully designed guide to the lifelong challenge of understanding who we are, why we react as we do, and how we might live with a little more gentleness and self-awareness.  The School of Life have also taken over our York window this week with a glorious display inspired by the book, and we’re celebrating the collaboration with a lovely giveaway over... Read more...
your mind drawn away from its work
Did you know that this Sunday is International Dawn Chorus Day? Across cities, hills, gardens and streets, people will be opening windows, stepping outside, or simply pausing to listen as the chorus gathers itself. There’s something reassuring about it, the way it happens regardless of headlines or hurry. A kind of steady, unshowy optimism. Often it's the blackbirds first, then robins, wrens, thrushes. A layering of voices until the air feels full of it.If you’re awake, you might listen from bed with the window open. If you’re out, perhaps on a dog... Read more...
at the slack of the tide
As the seasons begin to turn, there's something in the air that invites us to begin again. Spring has a way of doing that - nudging things back to life, making the world feel newly possible. And if you are someone who feels a creative pull, that feeling can be quietly electric. Beginning something creative rarely looks the way we imagine it will. There may be no dramatic moment of inspiration, or sudden clarity. More often, it starts with something almost embarrassingly small. Picking up the pen. Pulling out the paints. Sitting... Read more...
the sun rises in spite of everything
Our newsletter comes every week from sleepy Bishop's Castle in Shropshire, and yet even for many of us here, there is a quiet, persistent anxiety that is hard to shake. A sense of unease as the world feels increasingly uncertain, and events far beyond our control seem to press in on our daily lives. And if this is how it feels here, in relative peace and safety, how much more must be carried by those living closer to the centre of conflict. Those for whom uncertainty is not a passing feeling... Read more...
I come into the peace of wild things
This week our newsletter comes at a time, where here in the UK, spring is arriving slowly and insistently. Buds are unfurling, daylight lingers longer, and the first green shoots are pushing through the soil. And yet, as Poetry Pharmacists we are being asked for poetry prescriptions for navigating the world when it seems particularly dark and uncertain, or for trying to make sense of it. There is such a seeming dissonance between enjoying the beautiful Spring days we're having here in the UK, and the news. How can we... Read more...
I'd rather be starfish than the sun
This evening, Saturday March 28th marks Earth Hour, a simple, shared gesture that circles the globe each year. For one hour, at 8.30pm local time, lights are dimmed, switches are turned off, and the bright lights of the city soften. It began as a way of drawing attention to the climate crisis, but it has also become something quieter and more personal, a moment to pause, to notice, and to feel part of something held in common.At the Poetry Pharmacy, we are drawn to the spirit of it. An invitation to step... Read more...
Celebrating the 145th Birthday of Mary Webb
                                                                            Multitudes of soft soundsmake up the music of spring-a gentle stir of growththe crisp rustle of daffodils against one another,the wind communing with young leaves - Mary Webb, The Spring of JoyToday, March 25th, marks 145 years since the birth of Mary Webb, our own Shropshire writer, and here in Bishop’s Castle we feel her... Read more...
the vigorous early spring earth, its cautious silence
  At the Poetry Pharmacy we don’t usually prescribe by star sign. But we do have a fondness for curiosities, mysteries and for star gazing.. In our York shop there is even a Cabinet of Curiosities, a small room devoted to the strange and curious and wonderful and astrology certainly belongs in that tradition. So in the spirit of curiosity, we’re delighted to welcome Liz Ison who has kindly accepted an invitation to write something for our newsletter. Liz has edited a new anthology Poetry of the Zodiac which gathers together poems inspired by the heavens above us.... Read more...
my soul flickers, goes to ground
William Wardlaw Laing | 'A Fallow Field'  Poetry from the Fallow SpaceSpring is usually the season when we are encouraged to plant, or to begin a project, to produce something, or clear something out. But poets know that creativity does not always grow in the busiest soil. Sometimes the most necessary thing is to allow a little space, to pause and let the mind wander, to lie fallow.Psychoanalyst Masud Khan used the phrase “fallow time” to describe the quiet intervals that allow imagination to replenish itself. In poetry, these are often the... Read more...
the blossoms open like pink thimbles
  We Opened Our Doors in York!You may have noticed that we missed our usual newsletter last week. The simple reason is that the small team who usually write it, Deb and Maya, have been completely absorbed in opening our newest Poetry Pharmacy in the heart of beautiful York.On Thursday evening we welcomed friends, family, poets and members of the local press to an invitation-only preview. It was a chance to raise a glass together and test the building before opening our doors to the public.Then on Friday 6 March... Read more...
silver birches are tenderly dark
Here in the UK we are in the heart of changeable wintery weather and February can often feel heavy, slow, and grey. The light lingers only briefly, and we are required to be patient. But if we look closely, there are glimmers of change. Snowdrops peeking through cold earth and an afternoon light that stretches a little longer. Small sparks that remind us that spring is on its way. These small moments are exactly what Nadia Narain and Katia Narain Phillips explore in their new book Glimmers: Tiny Moments to Transform Your Life. Glimmers are small, everyday... Read more...
Spring will come again
Dear Friends, Recently, with troubling news unfolding all around, it is hard not to feel the weight of it all. At times, that weight can make it difficult to carry on with day-to-day life, and even harder to hold space for ordinary joys and for time with friends and family. In moments like these, we are reminded that courage, in its many forms, remains vital. This week, we’ve been reflecting on the quieter, everyday kinds of bravery: the courage to observe honestly, to feel fully, to speak when silence would be... Read more...
I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment
Dear Friends,It’s a season of sharp winds and unsettled times, yet we keep noticing the quiet courage of people showing up anyway. As winter lingers and the world feels bruised by noise and uncertainty, we’ve been taking comfort in the small, defiant signs of life pushing through the cold. Snowdrops on damp verges, doors being opened, hands still reaching out and we’re reminded that hope often arrives without fanfare. We’ve been thinking too about shelter. About places, people and gestures that offer a pause from the storm. Our York shop is our... Read more...
what wings she has
Dear Friends, I wanted to write to you directly, because many of you have followed the Poetry Pharmacy for a long time, not just as a shop, but as a place that has tried to support poetry as something shared and lived, through readings, open mics, and gathering together, rather than something that only exists on the page. It still feels quietly radical to insist on books, poetry, and kind attention in the middle of busy streets, and to keep offering space for readings, open mics, and gatherings, simply because they matter.From... Read more...
sail through this to that
Happy New Year from all of us at the Poetry PharmacyDear Friends,As the year turns, we wanted to pause and send you our heartfelt thanks for being part of the Poetry Pharmacy world.This past year has been a challenging one for many small businesses, and we have been so grateful to you for showing up. Grateful to those of you that came to events, readings and open mics, that read our newsletters, shared poems and passed on kind words. You shared our posts, ordered from our website, left thoughtful reviews, sent... Read more...
they clearly flew instead of fell
  (Photo shows poetry in the waiting room St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, Chest & Allergy Clinic)  Please Help Us to Bring Poetry to the High Street Dear Friends, As we step into a new year, with all its change, hope and possibility, I wanted to write to you about a new chapter for the Poetry Pharmacy. This spring, we will open a new shop in York, bringing poetry and the idea of words for wellbeing to a busy city street and giving it a permanent home there. It is something we have... Read more...
round suns wintering on the table
Happy Christmas from all of us at the Poetry Pharmacy At this time of year, when the days are at their darkest and the world can feel heavy with difficult news, we find ourselves returning to the small, steady things that endure. Lights lit against the dark, kindness, the simple act of gathering, remembering, and being hopeful together. Across cultures and faiths, people mark this season with light; a candle, a lamp, a star in the window as a way of saying we are still here, and we still care for one... Read more...
singing, dancing, to drive the dark away
people singing, dancing, to drive the dark away(Susan Cooper, “The Shortest Day”)In Bishop’s Castle we had the great switch on of the Christmas lights, tractors draped in fairy lights rumbling past in a joyful procession, lanterns glowing, live music floating through the streets and fireworks were launched above our tiny town. The primary school children sang carols, we drank mulled wine and friends hugged. Everyone mucked in. It was all glitter and goodwill in the very best small town way.And how different it might seem from our sister Poetry Pharmacy in Oxford... Read more...
their wings are bright windows
Breath, Calm, and a New Collaboration with St Mary’s HospitalAs the year draws in and the light fades towards winter, we have been thinking a great deal about breath. The breath that carries our words. The breath that steadies us in moments of anxiety. The breath that connects us to our bodies when life feels tight in the chest.The Poetry Pharmacy has been working with St Mary's Hospital chest & allergy clinic, Imperial College NHS Trust in Paddington, to bring four carefully chosen poems into the waiting room of the Chest Clinic. These... Read more...
white into the icy air
Extract from Winter MorningBut if I pause as I do now,and watch the streetlights outside flashingoff one by one like old men blinking theircloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighborsslamming car doors hard against the morningand see the steaming coffee in their mugskissing chapped lips as they sip andexhale each of their worries white intothe icy air around their faces—then I canremember this one life is a gift each of uswas handed and told to open: Untie the bowand tear off the paper, look insideand be grateful for whatever... Read more...
wonder upon wonder
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas. A Welcome Above Oxford StreetThis week, we’re shining a light on our Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street, a little sanctuary perched above the busiest street in London.At Christmas, London feels especially magical, with its lights, bustle, and the joy of finding just the right thing for someone you love. One of the quiet strengths of our space is the people in it: our staff are all poets, kind listeners who know... Read more...
I love the smell of oranges best
Poetry Across BordersThis week we're writing to you from the International Book Fair in Sharjah, as guests of the Sharjah Book Authority. Our special thanks go to our new good friends Moza Al Rand and Mohammad Al Houli, with whom we have been working these last few months and to their team for the warm welcome and friendship. We've been enjoying so many wonderful and exciting conversations from all over the world, and have been reminded of how literature and poetry are so often about the opening of doors, crossing borders of language,... Read more...
then the winter happens, like a secret
Here in Shropshire, the mornings are crisp, the leaves a rich golden hue, and the low autumn sun still spills warmth across the fields and woodland. Yet the nights are drawing in, and we can feel the gentle, inevitable shift toward winter. Winter offers us a necessary pause - rather than something to endure, we see it as an invitation: to rest, to reflect, and to gather strength. It’s a time to slow down, turn inward, and nurture our mind and creative selves through the darker months.This time of retreat can provide ideal... Read more...
a sense of something moving to and fro
  I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry. Sylvia PlathDear Patient, As clocks prepare to slip backwards, and as the year wanes and the air thickens with mists and darker evenings, our Poison Cabinet creaks open once more. Inside lie our darkest preparations — bottled not for the faint of heart, but for those who understand that a touch of venom may sometimes heal.CURSES & MALEDICTIONSFor when civility fails, verse to lay waste to deceit and... Read more...
wherein your poetry pharmacists share their news
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas. Extraordinary News from The Poetry PharmacyDearest Friends, Patients, and All Seekers of Literary Medicines,We'd love to share our news that the Poetry Pharmacy is preparing to open its third establishment, in York City Centre, early in the New Year! Bottles are being labelled, shelves dusted, and prescriptions for the spirit carefully compounded. Our poetic apothecaries are at work readying themselves to bring comfort, courage, and connection to a new community of readers... Read more...
running along the hedge and into the earth
Message in a bottle - for our US customersRoyal Mail now sorts out U.S. customs duties before your parcel even leaves the UK Strong-limbed like the oak. Low-slung belly sweeping the woodland floor. In the ink-black,  coal-black night I am a collection of shades. A liquid shadow, flowing between the trees. Just beyond your vision. Well beyond your imagination.            Eileen AndersonAs the nights draw in, we turn to the darker shades of poetry — where mystery, memory, and resilience meet.We're delighted to tell you about Badgered, a new... Read more...
Celebrate National Poetry Day at the Poetry Pharmacy
Happy National Poetry Day from all of us at the Poetry Pharmacy.You're welcome to pop into either coffee shop today and pay for your hot drink with a freshly minted poem - on us! Just take your poem when you go to pay and we may display your poem in our window.Poetry Underlined Poetry has been at the heart of Faber's publishing since its founding in 1929, with T. S. Eliot as the first Poetry Editor. This year, to coincide with National Poetry Day, they are launching a nationwide campaign to celebrate... Read more...
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...
Maria Wood- Poetry Pharmacy Review 27/06/2025
  Hello! I gotta tell you about this amazing bookstore I visited.    I pushed open the glass panelled door, and a smile as wide as the wingspan of a golden eagle spread over my face.    I stepped over the threshold into the bookstore. The Poetry Pharmacy, in Bishop's Castle near Ludlow in Shropshire UK. The first of its kind anywhere in the world.    To my left there was an apothecary cabinet stacked with small bottles, filled with capsules. On closer inspection, each one encapsulates a tiny piece... Read more...
12/06/2025- time and light are kinds of love
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.  The chief singer of summer is the grass; it is the very voice of Earth, taking us into her confidence.Mary Webb, 1881 –1927, novelist and poet of the Shropshire hills and chronicler of the natural world. Diagnosed with Graves’ disease at twenty, Webb came to understand the restorative power of nature in a profoundly personal way. In her periods of illness and recovery, it was the fields and trees, the breeze and birdsong, that... Read more...
13/06/2025- not with skin but with water
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.  Whether it’s a still pond at dusk or the vast pull of the sea, bodies of water offer more than their surface suggests. To swim in open water is to surrender to the natural world - a kind of immersion that soothes the nervous system, clears the mind, and often gives shape to feelings we struggle to articulate. To sit beside water is to be near something ancient and generous. It listens... Read more...
06/06/2025- I was a little tipsy on the dance
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.  This week we've been thinking about the value of bookshops and how they are so good at making a space or place of welcome. The Poetry Pharmacy bookshops love to do that too, and we're unusual in that we grew directly out of years of arts and community practice- Deb Alma started working with people with dementia to assist communication through poetry, and then later drove her Emergency Poet ambulance offering poetry on... Read more...
30/05/2025- My heart is like a singing bird
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.  June 1st marks one year of the Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street  It's our first birthday in London! And what a year it’s been!When we first opened our second Poetry Pharmacy inside Lush, on the busiest shopping street in the world, we didn’t quite know what to expect. We hoped to reach new audiences and show how poetry, and reading more generally, might play a therapeutic role in troubled times, or act as... Read more...
24/05/2025- and I began to understand what the bird was saying
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy's newsletter! Here you will find upcoming events, new and featured books, poems, prescriptions, and panaceas.Garden Wildlife Week 2025At the Poetry Pharmacy, we believe that tending to our emotional selves and to each other, must go hand in hand with nurturing the natural world around us. Just as poetry can bring beauty and balance to our lives, encouraging the wildlife in our gardens offers both a refuge for people and nature to flourish. As summer approaches here in the UK, our thoughts turn to the quiet transformations unfolding in... Read more...
18/05/2025- the most beautiful part of your body is where it's headed
Welcome to this week’s Poetry Pharmacy newsletter, where words are our medicine and addressing a search for meaning is often part of the prescription. This time, we’re exploring the intersection between poetry and philosophy—two practices trying to make sense of the world. They each seek to investigate some profound questions about human existence and the world we live in. TS Eliot’s Burnt Norton, the first of his Four Quartets, is deeply philosophical in its exploration of time, memory, and the nature of existence. Drawing on both Christian mysticism and classical philosophy, Eliot reflects on the idea... Read more...
13/05/2025- Poetry Pharmacy News!
Welcome to the Poetry Pharmacy newsletter! Here in our Shropshire bookshop we’re gearing up for next week’s Bishop's Castle Walking Festival, with a fresh new window display to mark the occasion painted by local artist Saffron Russell. We’re also excited to be working on a range of new collaborations and projects. Our former Lab where we cooked up our poetry prescriptions is currently being transformed into a vibrant venue for workshops and events - offering us more room and more possibilities to connect with you all! As spring deepens and the evenings grow longer, we’re filled with renewed... Read more...