from the store of the self itself

Something wicked has been brewing at the Poetry Pharmacy…We’re aware of a chill in the air, the evenings drawing in and the darkness beginning to encroach and it's the perfect time to introduce Poetry Poisons, a new collection of poetry anthologies I’ve chosen for those occasions when sweetness, consolation and good behaviour simply don't work.

At the Poetry Pharmacy, we’ve spent years prescribing poems for comfort, courage, calm and joy. But poetry knows the darker side of us too. It knows about grudges and wicked thoughts, temptation and bad behaviour, spite, revenge, fury and the strange pull of darkness.
I loved making these books. There was something wonderfully cathartic about rummaging around in the less virtuous corners of poetry, and a great deal of pleasure in finding poems that don’t try to make us better, wiser or more forgiving.
And sometimes we don’t want to be talked out of those feelings. Sometimes there is pleasure, recognition and even relief in finding them expressed perfectly on the page. These Poetry Poisons are for those moments.

Venomous verses, bitter remedies, wicked words and deliciously bad ideas. Poems to wallow in, laugh with, rage alongside and recognise ourselves in. Because perhaps there’s a place in the Poetry Pharmacy for a little poison too. 

Deborah Alma
Chief Poetry Pharmacist

The Poetry Poisons

DARKNESS
Extract of Night; For Howling to the Moon; For the Contemplation of Shadows & the Love of the Unlit; For the lifting of the veil between the real and the imagined.
 

REVENGE
For the Satisfaction of Deep Hurt; For Wrongs, Real or Imagined; For the Nursing of Grievances; For Fantasies of Redress and Reckoning; to Stoke the Fires of Righteous Fury. Best Served Cold.
 

Here is the dark poem Judith by Vicki Feaver from Revenge

VICES
A Distillation of the Finest Sins & Vices; For the Indulgence of Appetites; For Moments of Temptation and Relish; For the Celebration of Excess; to Encourage Delight in the Forbidden; for the Cultivation of Delicious Bad Habits.
 

Narcissus
 
Once I was half flower, half self,
That invisible self whose absence inhabits mirrors,
That invisible flower that is always inwardly,
Groping up through us, a kind of outswelling weakness,
Yes once I was half frail, half glittering,
Continually emerging from the store of the self itself,
Always staring at rivers, always
Nodding and leaning to one side, I came gloating up,
And for a while I was half skin half breath,
For a while I was neither one thing nor another,
A waterflame, a variable man-woman of the verges,
Wearing the last self-image I was left with
Before my strenth went down down into the darkness
For the best of the year and lies crumpled
In a clot of sleep at the root of nothings all
 
Alice Oswald

Choose your poison. 

You can visit our online Poison Cabinet to view the full range.

You can also join us & Macmillan for an evening of poison, poetry and general ill-will on 27th October, 6.30–7.30pm, as we celebrate the launch at Poetry Pharmacy Oxford Street.

Come & drink deep from the poison cup.

Book your ticket on Eventbrite here.

Wendell Berry, 1934–2026. 

We were very sad to hear of the death of Wendell Berry, the great American poet, essayist, novelist, farmer and environmentalist, at the age of 92.

Berry's writing and wisdom have run quietly through the heart of the Poetry Pharmacy from the beginning. His poems return us again and again to the natural world, to our place within it rather than above it, and to the consolations of paying attention. He wrote about love, work, community, belonging and the necessity of caring for the particular patch of earth and the particular people we have been given.

And he never mistook consolation for reassurance. There is an acceptance of mortality in his work, an understanding that death and loss belong to life just as surely as growth and renewal do. His writing doesn't try to tidy away uncertainty or grief. Instead, it asks us to remain present to the world, in all its beauty and difficulty.

Perhaps that is why we have prescribed his poems so often. Berry understood something that sits at the heart of the Poetry Pharmacy: that paying close attention to the world can itself be a form of medicine. If you don't already know his poem wonderful The Peace of Wild Things, you can read it here. His beautiful collection of the same name is available here.

We will miss him enormously, and we will keep prescribing him.

 

The Wonderment: Online Book Launch

How do we access the ever-present wonder all around us? With poems that are both fiercely honest and radically hopeful, The Wonderment reminds us that every moment, from our first to last breath, is worthy of our attention and awe.

On his deathbed, the poet's father said “From our birth...to our death...the wonderment.” His words became a compass for Rosemerry, inspiring a luminous collection of poems that invites readers to marvel at the altar of the ordinary.

In The Wonderment, Rosemerry reminds us the miraculous is not found apart from everyday life, but within it - every moment invites us to pause, soften, and remember our profound belonging.

Join us on Thursday 24 September, from 6–7pm UK time, for a very special evening of poetry as Rosemerry reads from her new collection, talks about the poems and answers questions from the audience. The launch will take place live online via Google Meet.

There are two ways to join: purchase a ticket here, or you can buy a copy of The Wonderment from us, which includes access to the launch. The book isn’t yet available elsewhere in the UK, so this is a chance to be among its first UK readers

We hope you’ll join us for this very special launch with the extraordinary Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

Events
Click the links to take you directly to events in 
York, Bishop's Castle, Oxford Street and Online

Join poet Chrys Salt and musician Richard Ingham for an evening exploring the richness and complexity of North East India

Rooted in Chrys Salt’s highly regarded collection The Punkawallah’s Rope and born of her performance at the Kolkata Book Fair and an immersive month in Kolkata and North East India, The Punkawallah’s Rope explores the vibrant textures, voices, and contradictions of a continent both dazzling and daunting. Through layered poems and haunting instrumentals played on various Indian instruments - the aludu, the bansuri, gopi yantra by International musician and saxophonist Richard Ingham.