Healing Poetry and Its Health Benefits

A poet resting its hands after writing healing poetry for its readers.

Photo by cottonbro studio

Poetry has its way with words. It has been proven to enrich the mind, body, and soul. It’s warm and comforting, along with other emotions that poems can evoke. In times of stress, trauma, and grief, healing poetry is what we need.

Reading and writing healing poetry helps us express ourselves better, especially when dealing with physical illnesses and emotional turmoil. Having access to numerous amounts of poetry books can be helpful. Fortunately, there’s one that may relate specifically to love, grief, and loss. The title is ‘Tales of a Traveler in Poetry and Prose: Along the Road Before Me.’

It’s a poetry book centering on love and loss. Brion K Hanks wants to reach out to readers and comfort them as they go through life’s most challenging battles and become more vital than ever. The book also tells people there’s always hope at the end of despair. His book is an excellent way to cope when you’re getting over something you’re grieving about.

The human heart is fragile, and it only takes one moment to either send us on a joyful high or break our spirit on a down low. In times like that, we always look for something or someone to understand us well, making healing poetry even more special. But other than that, it can also bring literal health benefits to the body.

Actual health benefits of poetry

Besides the symbolic aspects of healing poetry, do you know there are health benefits to reading them?

Whatever helps your emotional well-being affects your physical as well. Reading poetry can alleviate our stress and relieve some emotional burdens. Oddly enough, healing poetry can be in the form of angst writing, which depicts stronger emotions, mostly anger. The cathartic experience of taking the pain away can also be experienced through poetry reading.

Those who hold poetry reading and writing sessions have the potential or have already mastered the art of healing poetry. It can influence how a person thinks and looks at their circumstances, particularly abuse victims. Poetry can perfectly evoke the emotional turmoil they felt that other forms of media couldn’t. Although short, every word, line, and stanza can be a person’s source of strength.

Poetry Therapy and how it helps patients

There’s also a thing called Poetry Therapy which provides emotional support to patients as well as their caregivers. People in the hospice profession need the same care as their patients; poetry therapy is a springboard for growth, healing, and transformation. Poems offer countless insights into various aspects of life that regular conversations will need help understanding.

Reflecting the voice of our souls is one of the powers of poetry. Not just the figures of speech and cadence speak to us. It is more of the overall emotion, atmosphere, and delivery that airs out our baggage. It’s how each line makes us recall the exact moment that triggered emotions we never expected to feel before. As it’s coupled with striking performances, there are times when healing poetry hits the spot.

The authenticity of poetry as a tool for healing

Healing poetry allows us to tap into our lost voices, which have been carried away by the wind. It is like a sail that takes us on a journey where our consciousness takes a little vacation. Because poetry doesn’t follow the rigid rules of grammar and punctuation, certain levels of freedom are felt in writing and reading them.

The power of healing through poetry transcends other holistic methods; simply because of its accessibility. You can connect with a sheer amount of like-minded individuals who might have similar experiences as you have. After all, nothing’s better than sharing the pain and troubles with one more person to make the heavy lifting easier.

Reading and writing poetry is a creative outlet proven effective for those who want to express themselves without rehashing the pain and trauma they experienced. They can connect their experiences to metaphors, imagery, and rhythmic patterns, creating an artistic, dramatic, and still coherent string of words. Healing poetry is also a two-way street. Not only does it help the reader uncover and recover specific emotions, and the same goes for the writer.

That’s why the book Tales of a Traveler in Poetry and Prose: Along the Road Before Me by Brion K Hanks illustrates the process of love and loss comprehensive yet relatable manner. With every turn of its pages, readers learn more about how gut-wrenching life’s tribulations can be. But at the same time, how one can see the silver lining through everything.

If you want to know more about the healing power of poetry, please visit www.brionkhanks-poetry.com/.