“May writing be a path for all of us to seek the truth and share the fullness of our lives with one another.”
—Danna Faulds, poet and yogi
“I've had many wounds to heal, and I've done much writing to heal them, and in the process I've discovered a rich, deeply textured life I hadn't before recognized.”
—Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo
“The poem is a place to express the fear, uncertainty, delight, warmth, ambiguity and paradox of relationship-and it is also a process by which you learn from all of these."
—Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making by John Fox
“Don't worry about big ideas or where you are going. If you knew where you were going, you wouldn't need to write a poem to find your way.”
—Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making
by John Fox
“Poetry says things in ways that no other kind of communication can. When we write poetry, it is possible to not only heal the wounds of the heart, but liberate our imagination. Reading and writing poetry is a secret bridge to a part of ourselves that is sacred.”
—Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making
by John Fox
“You can write what is wild for you.
You can show where your roots go.”
—Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making
by John Fox
“Among all the valuable things of this world the word is the most precious. For in the word one can find a light the gems and jewels do not possess; a word may contain such life that it can heal the wounds of the heart.”
—-Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi teacher, musician and poet
“Seeking out, facing with courage, and bringing into the light of consciousness that which is unconsciousness, is what heals.”
— The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav
“Where does a poem's true being reside? Surely poetry lives in the body of its words, as we live in our human bodies of bone and nerve, muscle and blood. Yet even in writing a poem's first draft, it often seems as if something were already there, which we hunt with words-something like the poem's soul. What else to call that magnetic pull of a destination unknown yet nonetheless present and calling, which causes a writer to accept one arising phrase and reject another, or to delete or alter or expand during revision?”
—Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield
“I didn't know that if you want to write, you must follow your desire to write. And that your writing will help you unravel the knots in your heart. I didn't know that you could write simply to take care of yourself, even if you have no desire to publish your work. I didn't know that if you want to become a writer, eventually you'll learn through writing-and only through writing-all you need to know about your craft. And that while you're learning, you're engaging in soul-satisfying, deeply nourishing labor.”
—Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo
“When I speak of poetry, I mean more than the careful arrangement of language on a page. Rather, I mean the authentic life of expression that rises from us when we touch into the depths of life.”
—Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression by Mark Nepo
“Poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul that comes to renew us when we least expect it. More than the manipulation of language, it is the art of embodied perception – a braiding of heart and mind around experience.”
—Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression by Mark Nepo
“For me, poetry is where the soul touches the every day. It is less about words and more about awakening the sense of aliveness we carry within us. To walk quietly till the miracle and everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”
—Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression by Mark Nepo
"Follow, poet, follow right
to the bottom of the night..."
—-W.H. Auden
"Pythagoras recognized the considerable therapeutic power of human speech. He treated diseases through the reading of poetry. He taught students how a skillful, well modulated voice, beautiful words, and their meter and rhythm could restore balance to body and soul."
—The Healer’s Manual: A Beginner’s Guide to Vibrational Therapies by Ted Andrews
“For authentic, truthful expressions help us make the journey from our head to our heart. When we can surface without masks and stay in conversation with life, these essential expressions arrive with their wisdom. In this way, I retrieve poems more than create them. They become my guides. They become my inner curriculum. By listening to them, I learn and grow. And when I listen, I'm drawn to what I need to learn.”
—Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression by Mark Nepo