Newsletter

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...