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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 out of the noise and into a different kind of attention. Maybe some time too, to sit with a poem by lamplight or candlelight. To be reminded that stillness, too, can be a form of care.
Perhaps you might set your alarm and this evening take your own quiet hour, to turn off the lights, light a candle and maybe speak a poem aloud, or simply hold it in the mind. Notice what shifts.
Take a look at this article in The Guardian with its gentle reminder that darkness is not something to fear or banish, but something we need. As artificial light erases the night sky for much of the world, we lose not only the stars but a sense of wonder, perspective, and connection to something larger than ourselves.
We have gathered a few gentle bookish prescriptions for the occasion should you feel in need of them. Wishing you a peaceful hour, wherever you are.
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I love the night, the solemn night,
With all her twinkling glittering host;
And, though the sun may be more bright,
I love the mellow moonlight, most.
Martha Lavinia Hoffman
Extract of Night; For Howling to the Moon & the Love of the Unlit.
Bottles of Darknesse can be yours here.
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Book of the Month
We've been looking forward to John McCullough's new collection Crowd Voltage, a collection alive with the tension between solitude and togetherness. The poems explore what it means to belong, to a crowd, to a body, to a shared story. Moving through working-class and queer experience, these poems explore both connection and fracture, the ways we come apart and the ways we find each other again.
There are ghosts here, too, of places and histories, and a recurring pull towards the horizon, as sky and sea stretch through the collection, alongside the haunting image of Brighton’s collapsing West Pier. These poems seem to search for wholeness in a world that often feels splintered.
Yet what lingers most is a sense of quiet recognition. To be “common” here is not to be diminished, but to be shared, to be part of something living and interconnected, from people to plants, from tables to tides.
 
Crowd Voltage by John McCullough available here
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Jen is an award-winning poet and creative copywriter who transforms feelings, memories and ideas into heartfelt, personalised poetry. At her regular drop in events at the Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street, she crafts bespoke poems live on her trusty vintage typewriter, capturing individual stories and emotions and turning them into unique keepsakes.
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Wild Words: Spring, with Rhiannon Hooson
Throughout April: Sign up by 1 April
Bright green leaves still new to the air and dark grey clouds banked up behind the hill.
In the wood, anemones are opening like a secret. Spring stars rattle calls out of the owls all night,
and the air is strung with the smell of wild garlic and its promise of plenty.
Rhiannon's Wild Words are low pressure writing courses which help you ground your creativity in the turning year, and help you build a sustainable, daily creative habit. The courses are built on the philosophy that creativity should be organic, plentiful, and joyful.
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As a special online event for International Lucid Dreaming Day, this workshop is perfect for creatives: poets, writers, artists, and anyone else who is interested in learning about how to use lucid dreaming for creative purposes.
In this introductory workshop, you’ll learn the basics of lucid dreaming and
how it can be used to generate ideas for poems and other creative projects.
You’ll explore the subject through a blend of teaching, writing exercises, reflective practices, discussion and poetry, in a supportive and imaginative space.
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Start your morning with a burst of creativity at the Poetry Pharmacy London! Join poet Laurie Bolger for a relaxed, playful session of free flow writing in our lush first-floor space on Oxford Street. Tea, stationery, and warm vibes are provided—just bring yourself and your imagination. No experience needed, newbies welcome, and spaces are limited!
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Join award winning poet Caroline Smith to discover how the mundane & the life critical can be the raw materials for creativity. The snatched fragment of time, the poignant, the humorous. How can experience be caught and transfigured.
We will explore poetry of consolation and poetry of warning: of care for the self and family and care for our communities and world. Why does a poem work, why does it fail, when does the tender become sentimental, a passionate cause become ‘a design on others.’
Using sources, inspirations and prompts we will generate new poems and write in unexpected ways - exploring passion and heartbreak, care we have received, care we have given, poetry that steps forward and poetry that lets go.
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Join our bookseller and director of York Literature Festival, Chloe Hanks for a thoughtful, carefully held conversation with J. T. Welsch, author of The Poetry of Suicide -Lessons in grief from the lives and deaths of poets
In this event, Welsch reflects on poetry’s long engagement with suicide, drawing together literary voices such as Hamlet, Dante, Sylvia Plath, and Vladimir Mayakovsky with the deeply personal history of suicide within his own family. Rather than offering answers or conclusions, the conversation explores ambiguity, contradiction, and the limits of interpretation, asking what poetry can teach us about experiences that resist simple explanation.
The event will take place as a guided conversation, with space for listening, reflection, and audience questions.
Please note: this event engages with themes of suicide and death. A gentle content note and support resources will be shared. Attendees are welcome to step out at any point.
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Join Rukmini Poddar, artist and author of Draw Your Feelings, for this gentle, creative exploration into feelings as metaphor.
This will be a gentle, interactive 90-minute workshop where participants explore their inner emotional landscape through a blend of writing and drawing.
Rooted in her highly acclaimed Draw Your Feelings, the session centers around a simple but powerful idea: we can better understand our emotions by turning them into metaphors.
By translating abstract feelings into concrete images and poetic language, participants are able to access, express, and relate to their inner world in a more tangible way.
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To Write the Unruly Body Kate Noakes presents a number of approaches and exercises for writing about illness, dis-ease and disease.
Deriving from her new book, Sublime Lungs, the writing of which saw her explore diverse images and metaphors to explain and celebrate her chronic asthma, she invites you to the Poetry Pharmacy for a morning of reflection and expression, and occasional light-heartedness. Y
ou should leave with notes and ideas for poems and short pieces of writing related to these medical humanities topics, and with luck at least one new draft poem. There will be an opportunity to share your work, but absolutely no pressure to do so.
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Celebrate the York launch of Andrew Neilson's debut poetry collection, Little Griefs. Also reading at the Poetry Pharmacy will be Kathryn Gray, Katy Mahon and Matthew Paul.
"This collection has got everything – philosophy, myth, elegy, hilarity, grace, tenderness, pain and wisdom, all in brilliant proportion." – Rachael Boast
Andrew Neilson works in prison reform and co-edits Bad Lilies. He is the author of the pamphlet Summers Are Other (Rack Press) and the debut collection Little Griefs (Blue Diode Press).
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After the March 2026 release of impressionist Alistair McGowan’s second poetry collection Like Never Before, we are delighted to announce this exclusive Bishop’s Castle reading from the book. Alistair will also offer the opportunity for an audience Q&A after the reading.
This show is an exclusive performance of Alistair's poems, separate from his 3-in-1 piano and poetry performance tour. This is Alistair - like never before - commenting on a world that is accelerating "like never before".
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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.The walk will finish at the Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street for tea and cake where participants will also receive a Poetry Pharmacy goody bag! This will include a copy of 100 Poems to Help you Relax, edited by Liz, and your own bottle of Relax pills, specially created to celebrate the publication of this lovely book.
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.
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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.
While the walk will only be a few kilometres and therefore not too strenuous, it will involve stiles and quite possibly mud, so participants will be asked to bring along suitable footwear and clothing. We’ll walk at the pace of the slowest, the better to chat and enjoy the views. The ticket includes a drink and cake at journey’s end and numbers will be limited to 12 participants.
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