by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: October 29, 2010   Last Updated: August 15, 2011

Poetry writing is therapeutic because it is freeing to the creative spirit. It is relaxing and it has untold benefits such as stress relief, a sense of being in touch with yourself and your world. In short, it opens all doors to the psyche and lets in fresh breezes from without. No longer is the writer is confined, unless, of course, he confines himself to the strict confines of traditional metered poetry. Most therapeutic types of poetry are un-metered and are unrhymed and are words and thoughts associated to moods, or feelings. 

Poetry writing is creative, and creativity is making something new, creating words and phrases that one else has ever created in exactly that way. And this is  mentally healthy. It gives the poet a good grasp on the reality of their own thoughts. These may have been unnoticed and uncensored before. And simply becoming introduced to one's own way of thinking and their special way of stringing words together, they gain insights. 

And insights on how on one thinks is what the mending process is all about. It is the mental mechanism psychologists label cognition.  Having an ability to take one's thoughts, as well as one's ways so thinking, out and analyzing them, or at least looking at them intently, is one step toward wellness thinking. And wellness thinking is miles ahead of illness thinking. 

In other words, a cognitive person will want to know why  he thinks as he does, and he will reign in on unhealthy thinking processes. And poetry is one way of doing this, an interesting way. It makes comparisons, asserts opinions, and is unafriad of being censored. And who ever thought poetry has so much to say about mental health, but the poets themselves. They must be aware of conflicts and problems of dealing with others and in their poetic ways, search for the means  of presenting them for discussion in socially acceptable ways. Poetry is art and art is absolutely socially acceptable. 

How one looks at poetry is also therapeutic, and it says to others, I appreciate word art and I consider it alongside paintings, the theater, sculpture, as an art form. It is freeing to the soul and it matters. Those who appreciate poetry, theirs, and others, are advanced several degrees toward wellness thinking. They find kindred spirits lurking among the pages of poetry books, and consequently the ages even at times seem to fade away when poets gather. 

A word of caution: It is true poets are the deep thinkers of the art world. They often get so entangled in its traps, - and it can trap you - that they fail to see its darker side and often use poetry as an excuse for shirking the real work of day to day reality. This is not healthy. Poetry to be therapeutic must be used as a soothing ointment to the psyche and to the battered soul, and not as an excuse not drop out of society.

Poetry is to be compared to an ice cream cone, an occasional chocolate bar, and not to a full course meal. Unless, of course one is a full fledged poet and makes it their job, but this is rare. It does not feed the family, nor does it bring in sustenance pay. Poetry, to be thoroughly therapeutic, must be an occasional escape from reality, not an all time profession. It is, in one way of looking at it, vacations for the soul. 

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