Poetry is a fantastic way to help your mind at all times. It can boost your mental health, be a coping mechanism in times of distress and a wonderful mindful activity.
What is Poetry?
Poetry is a form of expression that comes in many guises. There is free verse poetry which has no rules, rhyming poetry, epic poems and much more. Each type of poem will have its own appeal. Some people may like one type and others another, much like books.
Here is a poem by one of The Wonderment Team.
You Still Fight
You’ve had a hard life
But I will tell you now
That’s made you
Something really special
Because you never gave up
You kept fighting
For a better tomorrow
And believed in your own future
When no one else did
So now stand up again
And prove to the world
Over and over
That nothing will ever
Stop you from being
The Warrior I see in you everyday.
by Neil
You will be able to read this poem at any time either here or in our Free Resources section!
The Benefits of Poetry
The benefits of poetry are wide and varied. From coping with life and times of difficulty, to finding a way to express yourself to pure enjoyment.
Reading
Reading poetry is a fantastic way to escape daily life. You can venture into many worlds much like reading books. This gives you the opportunity to use others frames of reference with which to view the world. Learn about the ways others cope, the struggles they’ve faced and even their great loves. It even helps when looking for validation of the emotions you are experiencing, knowing that someone else has been through what you are can be empowering.
Poetry can be engrossing and fulfilling, read in bite sized chunks when looking at smaller individual verses. Or indeed read like a book when thinking of the Epic poems such as The Odyssey by Homer.
This means you can escape reality for a time, giving your mind an alternate focus, creating a mindful activity which will benefit your mental health immensely. This can impact feelings of low mood, depression, anxiety and stress.
Writing
Writing poetry can be a wonderfully enjoyable experience. You can choose to write without rules, which can be freeing and enlightening. Or you can chose a style that is more suited to you and has guideline for you to follow, such as rhyming couplets, used by the likes of Shakespeare. Edgar Allen Poe used ABCBBB, a style that creates atmosphere and almost hypnotic metre.
Using poetry as coping mechanism can enable you to express yourself in ways that you have not thought of previously. Tackling moments in your history of distress and giving life to your innermost thoughts, thereby helping you to process them and move forward.
This is just a brief introduction as to how poetry can help you deal with trauma, depression, anxiety, stress and life in general. Please remember that if you are struggling with your mental health to seek the advice and assistance from a professional. You can view our Therapy and Where to Find it page to get more information on where to look for this.
Have you written any poetry? We would love to read some if you have, feel free to tag us on TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook and Twitter or email us and perhaps we will feature one of your poems on The Wonderment!
