Article adapted from Key Note speech to the National Poetry Therapy Conference, Minnesota, 2018
There’s something quite wonderful about finding your people—those who don’t think it odd that you might prescribe a poem for grief or heartache, or drive around in a 1970s ambulance dispensing poetry to strangers. When I first created the Emergency Poet, I didn’t know there were others like me. I thought I’d made it all up.
Later, I discovered that poetry has been prescribed for thousands of years—from the ancient Egyptians who wrote healing words on papyrus and asked patients to eat them, to modern-day poetry therapists and bibliotherapists. But this, I now realise, is the tradition I’d stumbled into, following instinct rather than theory.
How It All Started
The Emergency Poet began over a decade ago with a vintage ambulance and a wild idea: to bring poetry to people who might otherwise never encounter it—on the high street, at festivals, in libraries or hospitals.
At first, I didn’t quite believe in what I was doing. When people called me a poetry therapist or asked me to run workshops explicitly focused on poetry for wellbeing, I felt like a fraud. Not just a bit of imposter syndrome—but a full-blown sense that I was sneaking into someone else’s profession without the qualifications. It was as if I’d been asked to fix an engine or perform surgery with no training whatsoever.
The whole set-up felt more like street theatre than therapy—slightly ridiculous, deliberately playful. I was drawing more from magic and performance than from psychology. And yet, what kept happening—again and again—was that people came in, sat down, and some sort of magic happened.
My Own Turning Point
In my 40s, I lived through an abusive relationship. It was a turning point in both my personal life and my writing life. I came through it, but not easily. That pain needed to be transformed into something meaningful—and poetry was my way to do that.
I wrote my first collection, Dirty Laundry, as a way to write myself out of pain. I also read widely, not for study but for survival—seeking empathy, wisdom, and solace. A poem that stayed with me, pinned to my fridge for years, was Derek Walcott’s Love After Love. That poem helped. It became mine.
And that, I believe, is the power of poetry. It speaks directly, intimately—from one human being to another. It can change a mood, offer comfort, challenge or act as a blessing. It can even, sometimes, help someone feel seen.
The Ambulance as a Safe Space
In the Emergency Poet ambulance, “patients” lie back, the noise of the world outside fades, and we begin. I ask gentle, non-invasive questions—about childhood reading, moments of calm, the places they go to be alone. Only then do I ask, gently, about any emotional condition they might be aware of.
I listen carefully, with as little eye contact as possible so they don’t feel watched but heard, deeply. Then I pull a poem—one of around 300—from my doctor’s bag. I write their name at the top, and “prescribe” it: to be taken with a cup of tea in a quiet garden, or on a park bench, or in the bath.
It’s not unusual for people to cry, to laugh, or to say they feel lighter. I’ve worked in hospitals, hospices, and community settings, with people facing loneliness, vision loss, domestic violence, and more. And always, I return to the poem as a quiet but powerful tool for connection.
From Fraud to Practitioner
It took time—and encouragement from others—for me to stop thinking of myself as a fraud. I began reading books by Nicholas Mazza and Geri Chavis. I looked at the theory behind the work I was doing intuitively. I started to take myself seriously. I began to understand that what I do has value. And that, actually, I am quite good at it.
My background working with people with dementia taught me to sit quietly alongside someone in pain, to be fully present and to respond not as a performer, but as a fellow human being. That, I now see, was my training.
Holding Space for Others
This winter, I had the privilege of editing #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology—a powerful collection of poems by survivors of sexual violence. It brought together so many strands of my life: the woman who had survived, the editor, and the person who could hold space for others. It became the book I wish I’d had when working with women who needed to be heard.
The anthology moves through many stages—guilt, anger, grief, and, ultimately, healing and empowerment. The poem I’ve included below is by the brilliant Roz Goddard and sits near the end of the book. For me, it says everything about what poetry can offer.
This poem is for you
carrying a bale of warm towels
house low lit, quiet
a great silence recently
come to my heart
a long quiet such as one might
find buried in a seam of coal
I think of your darkness
far away, weightless as a crane fly.
On the stairs, I stop half-way
and remember
as every so often I must do
of being scattered
in the tread of your boot. Of women
gathering me in boat arms
attending there, as one dawn
gave way to another, until I was strong.
I remember and though my
front is soft as lawn, as milk
a buried lesson is diamond
in my bones and seems to shine.
Roz Goddard
This is what poetry can do. It offers empathy, connection, a voice, a hand held out. In a world that often feels overwhelming—where we’re fractured by politics, grief, injustice—poetry can still help us praise what remains, what matters, what’s human.
I’ll leave you with this poem by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski. May it remind you to keep finding beauty, even in a broken world.
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine...
Deborah Alma