The World’s Need
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
For years, it has been widely understood that reading fiction can aid in building a greater sense of empathy towards the real world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, readers rooting for literary characters during all their trials and tribulations often results in those readers rooting for other people in their actual lives, too.
At the Poetry Pharmacy, we believe poetry can offer a similar outcome. After all, words are a foundation for connection, however they are presented- and a poem is an offering of words in their most intimate expression. From mindful haikus and stripped-down free verse to lyrical and heartfelt sonnets, poetry as a medium can embody what it is to navigate our own feelings; something a lot of us, if not all, can struggle with sometimes. Even more so, the innate personalness of poetry creates an almost unavoidable glimpse into each other’s humanity, regardless of whether reading, hearing or even writing a piece evokes emotion or not.
Gaining this precious insight into the experiences of others, especially if we cannot directly relate to them, can be a valuable practice in both external and internal emotional expansion. We widen our perspectives, and we give more grace- to ourselves, and to everyone. In this way, poetry can be a tool to cultivate empathy- and empathy can be a wonderful tool to create a gentler world.
In this time of so much worry, remember: a freer, more open mind is often a kinder one.
Recommended Reading:
Here are two poems from First Aid, our newly published anthology, to take with you into the rest of your day, or week, or for however long you need them. While the book was created to aid in general emotional uplifting, we feel it is a lovely introduction to poetry filled with humanity and softness, and a source of support for a range of feelings and experiences.
This is the time to be slow (extract)
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
- John O’Donohue
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
We feel a strong connection to the work of The Empathy Lab who's mission is to raise an empathy-educated generation, working with schools, libraries, bookshops, families and other settings.
Here are the Poetry Pharmacy recommendations from the extensive reading list at the Empathy Lab.
by Ifor Lawson