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 the value of poetry in the everyday: Poetry Underlined.

In Poetry Underlined, Faber are pairing poetry from the past with the present to show how poetry resonates across time. Billboard sites across the UK and Ireland will showcase poets including Seamus Heaney, W.H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, and contemporary poets including Mary Jean Chan and Hannah Sullivan – all with bespoke designs by woodcut artist, Duncan Montgomery. They will also be featured in the Poetry Pharmacy in London and Bishop's Castle.

At the Poetry Pharmacy we work to bring poetry into the everyday and we're delighted to work with Faber on this campaign.
Watch out for some joint instagram posts during the next few days and you'll also see a competition where you could win a full library set of Faber Poetry titles used in the campaign.

Permission to Play

When we hear the word “play,” most of us picture childhood: carefree afternoons, laughter in the garden, mud pies, hide-and-seek. But this National Poetry Day, the challenge—and the invitation—is to be playful.

• Creativity and imagination
  Play loosens the grip of the practical, the necessary, and lets imagination surprise us. Whether through words, art, music, gardening, or even games, playful acts spark creativity. They allow us to explore “what if?” without fear of failing.

• Mental health and wellbeing
  There’s a growing body of evidence that play reduces stress, boosts mood, improves resilience. Adults who allow themselves playful moments are often more able to cope with pressure, whether at work, at home, or anywhere else life demands serious effort.

• Connection and joy
  Play is relational. It builds bridges. Shared laughter, experiments with form, breaking the expected—these are things poetry can do, and that playful adults can do in community. They remind us of joy, of belonging, and of the simple delight of being alive.

• Spirit of curiosity and lifelong learning
  Children are natural experimenters. We lose a lot of that as adults, telling ourselves we “should know better,” or it’s “not our kind of thing,” or it’s “too silly.” Yet curiosity opens doors, and playful curiosity keeps us engaged with the world, with learning, with wonder.
  
  Barriers to Being Playful (and How to Push Back)

• Fear of judgment: Concern about looking foolish is one of the biggest obstacles. Yet many forms of play are inherently a bit absurd, and that’s part of their power.

• Time pressures & responsibilities: Adult life often feels like a constant triage. But playful moments don’t have to eat hours — sometimes it’s a joke, a doodle, turning chores into a poem or song, dancing while making dinner, trying a prompt or game.

• Cultural norms: We are often taught that seriousness = maturity. But maturity doesn’t demand seriousness all the time. There’s strength and wisdom in embracing lightness too.
   

This year, as we celebrate the power of poetry, let’s also remember its deep connection to play. We invite you to join in—write, read, and share poems that revel in playfulness. Challenge yourself: try out surprising metaphors, experiment with form, share something delightfully silly, or invite someone younger or older to join you in a poem-game. For inspiration, the National Poetry Day website is full of wonderful resources and prompts for all ages. 

Playthings

Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!"
Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.
I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.
With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain.
In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.

By Rabindranath Tagore, from Poetry Prescription - Inspiration

Poetry walk with Jonathan Davidson

Join poet Jonathan Davidson for a Poetry Walk starting and finishing at The Poetry Pharmacy Lab in Bishop's Castle.

Using a circular route, we will stroll along small roads and footpaths, stopping now and then to hear some poems read aloud in the open air. Copies of poems – by various carefully selected poets – will be provided, although participants are welcome to bring along short poems of their own to share.

Walking to Relax:
A Literary Stroll through London

Join Liz Ison on a journey of exploration through literary St James, uncovering the hidden histories and stories of London’s writers and poets such as William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Pepys and Ignatius Sancho.

We’ll be bringing poetry and literature off the bookshelves and outside by spending time in one of the capital’s most beautiful parks, St James Park, seeing how the combined power of poetry and parks can help us to relax and unwind, before further literary wanderings through the districts of St James and Piccadilly, ending up at the Poetry Pharmacy in Oxford Street.

Poetry Prescriptions with Liz Ison

Pop in to our Oxford Street Poetry Pharmacy to meet Liz Ison, editor of ‘100 Poems to Help You Relax’ & maybe pick up your own complementary healing poetry prescription. No need to book - just pop in!

With Love, Grief and Fury
Paperback Launch

Join us to celebrate the paperback launch of Salena Godden’s powerful poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury. Salena will be reading from the book, which moves between love and loss, truth and resistance, offering poems that comfort, inspire, and ignite hope. 

Over thirty years after she first stormed the UK poetry scene, Salena has created her most audacious and definitive collection yet.

Join poets Roz Goddard and Jane Commane for a poetry spa morning of workshops and readings. We will explore the richness of our inner and outer landscapes where new creative ideas can spontaneously arise and be used for experiments in writing poetry.

“Roz Goddard is one of my favourite poets and Small Moon Curve shines with all that I admire in her poems: mystery, beauty, deep tenderness and a willingness to venture into the dark and light it with love.” – Liz Berry