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An Appeal To Our Friends
To Get Involved and Help Fund
The Institute for Poetic Medicine
                                                           

                                      December, 2010                                             

 

Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine,


                 The Benefit and Blessing of Connection


 

                                         It is with words we begin

                                           to know where we are,

                                          the details of existence

                                    reveal our code of connection. *

                                                       ~ Kimberley Nelson

 

I recently visited with Hanmin Liu and Jennifer Mei of Wildflowers Institute.  We shared a wide-ranging conversation over tea and a delicious lunch of noodles, vegetables and beef that Jennifer prepared.
 

Candles Against SpiralThere was a vivid moment in our conversation when all our thoughts converged with great energy and spoke themselves:

 

What we all recognized in our lives and work is the centrality of connection.

 

I learned Hanmin calls those precious moments of connection "informal capital."   Informal capital is about being enriched in ways that can't be planned.  What is clear to each of us, is that connection brings to life everything that has lasting value.

 

(To learn more about the beautiful community building work of Wildflowers Institute, CLICK HERE).


For The Institute for Poetic Medicine and our poetry partners, those moments of deep connection include:


 

���When someone who has mental health challenges and is struggling to make it in this world (in Eugene, OR) steps forward to help another person make it through reading her poem to the group.

 


     Writing Our Relationship with Trees (Brian Moore, IPM Poetry Partner)


 

Everyone present gathers informal capital when each person feels connected to human warmth and the courage to give voice to what is true.  There is a profound triumph in poem-making felt by someone who is frequently acquainted with grief.



Foster High School (Merna Hecht, IPM Poetry Partner)


���The grace of connection includes a printer in Seattle, WA who is so moved by the exquisite and harrowing poems of refugee young people from war torn countries and countries with ethnic and religious upheavals - that she walks many extra miles with our poetry partner Merna Hecht to make a full color beautiful anthology financially possible.



2100 Lakeside Black Man Reading���Or it is men who find themselves homeless in Cleveland OH listening to one another's poems with extraordinary empathy, no nonsense honesty and bolstering humor.  It's when a woman, a retired English teacher, a part of that poetry project is so moved that she decides to start up a book group which now meets bi-monthly for those homeless men.

 

 2100 Lakeside Men's Shelter

(Annie Holden, IPM Poetry Partner)



                                   To Nurture and Expand

                                    I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
                                      when a new life begins for me,
                                               as it does each day,
                                              as it does each day. **
                                                  ~ Stanley Kunitz
                                                   

We at The Institute for Poetic Medicine watch for the ways to nurture and expand in concrete ways all the concentric circles made from our projects - and to celebrate the unexpected moments of connecting grace that occur along the way. 

 

Fireworks1

What gives us a great deal of pleasure and sense of confidence is knowing that this year, we at IPM, have much to celebrate.  Just beyond that celebration is a deeper call to grow and welcome the future, a future that includes improved work and more moments to "awaken soulfulness in the human voice."

 

For over twenty years I've worked to raise awareness about the healing power of poetry in the United States and around the planet.  In the past two years, visits to three hospitals (Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, University Hospital of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and the Norman Regional Health System in Oklahoma) served as a catalyst for writing to heal and arts in medicine programs to take root or begin to take root in those large institutions.


 

                   A Power Not Granted by Our Culture


  

                       Poetry allows one to speak with a power

                              that is not granted by our culture.

                                                  ~ Linda McCarriston


People sometimes tell me that they feel I am kind.  That may be true.  I strive for that.  I know in my own experience that a single gesture of kindness can last as a gift for my entire life.  However, I know in my gut that what gives me the vision and stamina for staying on this healing path of poetry, 36 years now, to help people reclaim and sustain the power of their own voice, is a quality of fierce determination.


     This fierceness is a sacred fire

                 I am called to tend.


We live in a time when the general culture presents honesty and congruence as just another option (right alongside lies and hypocrisy!).  I believe poetry and poem-making give us, and those we serve, the words and courage to speak up for and align with what is true in our hearts - and through that, what is beautiful.


 

When you support IPM, you help me tend that sacred fire.  You are joining in that reclamation and sustenance of life-giving language, especially for people who are marginalized and unheard.


                                      We Are Grateful. . .


                                              Early one morning
                                     when the birds were singing
                                        I had another heart in me.
                                              ~ Anonymous, Eight-years-old



You are one of those who know of the healing qualities of poetry. What you also know is that helping a person who is suffering, who is ill, who is in grief, or whose life is out of control can be life-changing. If IPM can help just one youth at risk to give up returning to a gang, help one patient to heal more quickly, bring one family back together after a child has died, help one Afghanistan Veteran stop taking too many meds, or awaken one child to love writing poems, it is worth supporting. IPM does all that and more.

 

We are grateful for the many contributors already supporting this work.  To read how your help matters CLICK HERE to view our  Constant Contact entitled "Poetic Medicine Across America", which shares inspiring stories of our work.  Also included here is a synopsis of programs planned for 2011.    

 

Your donation today will help to create more connections and help return a spirit of poetry, with all the benefit and blessings of that, to many people and places.  Please let us know who might need our help and above all, keep in mind that one of the best ways to fill your own heart is by being generous. Please read on to see how to make your donation.

                                                              Sincerely,
                                                    John Fox
                                President, The Institute for Poetic Medicine


*
from "No Place for Solitude"; Poetic Medicine:  The Healing Art of Poem-Making by John Fox; Jeremy Tarcher, Inc.  Kimberley has dedicated her work to bringing poetry to youth at risk and who are incarcerated.  She serves on the board of IPM.

**from "The Round"; The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz; W.W. Norton, 2000.  Kunitz was U.S. Poet Laureate at the age of 95 and wrote until his death at 100. 

The following YouTube is not of "The Round" quoted above, but don't miss this one of Stanley Kunitz reading "Touch Me":    
(CLICK HERE
)


                 Your ideas, feedback, and support are vital to
                                The Institute for Poetic Medicine...

                 We hope the information below will inspire you!



"An Outstanding Program. . ."



"As executive director of The Lloyd Symington

Foundation, which for two decades has supported

visionary cancer programs, I can say quite confidently

that Poetic Medicine is one of the most outstanding

programs we have ever funded. As a gifted poet him-

self and an exceptionally skilled facilitator, John Fox

has profoundly touched the lives of hundreds, if not

thousands, of people facing cancer."


 

~Toby Symington

  Executive Director

The Lloyd Symington Foundation  (CLICK HERE)

 

 

 
_____________________

"If ever there were a time when connecting creativity and healing was meaningful on a planetary scale, now is the time.
This is why I feel thankful to support the work of
The Institute for Poetic Medicine.

Vitalizing, direct, spirit-awakening...
so grateful for the work of IPM!" 


~ Marna Hauk
Portland, Oregon
______________________




EVERY  DONATION  MATTERS


 
From all that dwells below the skies,

 Let faith and hope with joy arise;
  Let beauty, truth, and good be sung
    Through every land, by every tongue.
~ Unitarian Prayer



WAYS YOU CAN GIVE:

Friend of the Institute ($35-$149)
 
Supporting Hands ($150-$349)
 
Heart of Community ($350-$999)
 
Spirit of the Muse ($1000+)

Every donation matters; we are grateful
for any amount
you can afford to give. 
Our commitment is to put it to effective and efficient use. 


Your contribution will make a difference!

Donations to The Institute for Poetic Medicine
are Tax-Deductible.

 
Acknowledgement of Your Contribution
for the IRS Will Be Provided.



                                Please Make Checks Payable To:

                        The Institute for Poetic Medicine

                                        P.O. Box 60189
                                  Palo Alto, CA  94306
                                         Attn:  John Fox

                         To Download A Donation Form:
                                              CLICK HERE

  


Your Donation Will Provide Poetry As Healer To:


Cancer & wellness support  

      centers

Underserved communities

Third world youth traumatized

      by war

Hospice patients, staff &

      volunteers

Veterans

Incarcerated & recently

      released youth

 

Medical students, nurses & physicians

Homeless shelters

Pastoral care counselors

School children, community college students & educators

Drug & alcohol recovery

Raising environmental awareness

Arts-in-medicine programs

International settings


                                    After the final no there comes a yes,
                               And on that yes the future world depends.
                                                      ~ Wallace Stevens


                         



IPM POETRY PARTNER PROJECTS

For 2011



STORIES OF ARRIVAL:  YOUTH VOICES
Foster High School, Tukwila, WA
Merna Ann Hecht, Project Coordinator
 


_______________________

When I learned how to write a poem I felt happy
because I knew I could share my feelings with people, so that people could understand what was inside my heart.  I like the way
we understand each other's sadness, happiness, love and hurt
by listening to each other's poetry.
~ Maryam Sami, Afghanistan

_____________

Merna Ann Hecht, Bottom Left Box

3rd Year As an IPM Poetry Partner    

Population Served:
New Immigrant Teens and Their Families


The pilot project took place in 2009 with 34 students from 15 countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi, Somalia, Mexico, Turkey, Vietnam and others, and expanded in 2010 to 45 students.  The students wrote about leaving their respective countries and arriving in America, about living in refugee camps, losing loved ones and experiencing violence. No matter the depth of loss or the intensity of experience with violence, many of the young poets voice their longing for peace to come to their country. They write of their wish to be able to return to their country or other parts of the globe where people suffer poverty and war, and provide medical care and other forms of assistance. Their dreams of becoming healers and peacemakers are consistent and inspiring. 

 

Understanding and compassion for each other's stories was a central element of each year, as was helping the students find their voices, and increasing their visibility in the community. Each year we have created an anthology of the students' work, presented public readings in auditoriums and through the media.


 

This coming year we plan to invite family members to write with us.  We want to provide them with an opportunity to voice what the immense changes in their way of life means to them, and to help them understand the dreams and goals of their young people.  We hope to increase family support and understanding from elder to younger and younger to elder.


 

Merna HechtMerna Ann Hecht  is a poet, storyteller, and teaching artist.  She received a National Storytelling Network 2008 Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling for a project using storytelling, poetry, and art in working with children at BRIDGES: A Center for Grieving Children, in Tacoma, WA .  Merna has worked as an artist in residence at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center School , detention centers, and facilities for homeless youth.  She teaches arts and poetry classes for Portland State University and the University of Washington and also presents a course for educators on Teaching for Global Compassion. She is currently the project director for the Stories of Arrival: Youth Voices project, a community partnership project with IPM and other organizations.


 


                      Foster High School Students, Voices Project, Tukwila, WA
 

(CLICK HERE)
To Visit Jack Straw Productions' Website
and Listen to Audio Recordings
of the Students Reading Their Poetry





WRITING TOWARDS WELLNESS:
"POETRY AND RECOVERY" SERIES 

For Use by Clubhouses Across the United States
and Southeastern Pennsylvania

Lisa DeVuono, Project Coordinator




Lisa DeVuono (back row, right) and Group Creating Word Collages

2nd Year As An IPM Poetry Partner


Population Served:
People Living With Mental Illness
 


We'd like to develop a template for a peer training manual utilizing poetry to enhance information and skills for wellness and recovery. Themes that will be covered include: listening, compassion and empathy, gratitude, risk-taking, communication, forgiveness, transformation and joy.  Each session is dedicated to exploring a theme through the use of quotes, poems, a set of questions, writing activity, and sharing and discussion.

 

This manual will support the Clubhouse philosophy that treats each day as a work-ordered day by encouraging members to learn new skills and teach and mentor to others. It will offer members the opportunity to participate in the creation of the manual and empower them to find new meaning in and healthier approaches to handling psychiatric and emotional crises. It will focus the work on the poem as a tool for recovery, not on the person as patient.


Lisa DeVuono is a poet and workshop facilitator living in the Lehigh Valley, PA.  She was the co-founder of IT AIN'T PRETTY, a women's writing collective that has performed in a variety of places including bookstores, cafes, and radio.  She has facilitated writing workshops and creative events in a variety of places including conferences, festivals, prison, retreats, hospitals, and business settings.  She has also been a group facilitator and creativity coach for the Artist Conference Network, a nationwide coaching community for artists of all kinds.  Her poetry has been published in several literary reviews.  Her chapbook, published by Pudding House Press, is entitled Poems from the Playground of Risk.


To Learn More About the Clubhouse Project:

(CLICK HERE) 

______________________
 

Who knows what we might do about living quiet?

Ours is in the eye of the beholder.

We do work with a new freedom.

Your spirit is open

Your life is at peace

We become spiritual beings.


~ Robin, Clubhouse Member

 
 





THE WORD PROJECT
Guilford County Regional Juvenile Detention Center
Greensboro, North Carolina

Jacinta V. White, Project Coordinator




Jacinta (2nd from left, back row) Working with Community Children as Part of a Workshop Sponsored by Win-Win Resolutions and the NC Storyteller's Guild.  Jacinta Taught on Using Narrative Poetry to Tell Your Story.


1st Year As IPM Poetry Partner 

Population Served:
Incarcerated Youth


I founded The Word Project to provide a platform for all persons to share their truth constructively and creatively. This has allowed me to work with hospice, the Brenner Children's Hospital, the Greensboro Public Library, the Poetry Behind Bars Project and other fine organizations. It is with great enthusiasm that I am requesting funding to work with The Guilford County Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Greensboro.

 

The Center works with children and youths, ages 8-17, in a maximum security facility, who have been charged with crimes from truancy to murder. My vision is, as a pilot project, to work with eight males, ages 13-17, for eight consecutive weeks, believing that these are the ones in most need of this program at the moment. My long-term goal is to involve the community through collaboration with other artists and organizations.  IPM funding will make possible preparation, supervision, facilitation time, mileage and materials.


Jacinta V. White is the founder and director of The Word Project, an organization committed to engaging and assisting persons on their journey of self-discovery, expression, and healing though poetry writing.  Jacinta, a published writer and poet who received the 2008 First Place in the Press 53 Open Poetry Contest, works with organizations such as the Greensboro Public Library (where she is the co-director for "LifeVerse"); Brenner's Children Hospital in Winston-Salem, NC; the Women's Resource Center in Greensboro, NC; the Carolina Center for Hospice and End of Life Care; and the Adult Center for Enrichment.  She holds a BA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a MPA from Georgia State University in Atlanta.  Jacinta is currently working on her certification in the field of poetry therapy through the National Association of Poetry Therapy.


 



 

I sit across from you not as an expert
Or lover or novice, not as the beginning or the finale,
Potter, painter, artist or healer
But open as the page before you...
That's when you laugh, rear back, and sigh a passionate, "Aha"
I, like a midwife witnessing a new birth
See in your eyes a confirmation of readiness,
A welcoming of an unexpected, long awaited gift:
The poetry of you.
~ Jacinta White, from Midwife to a Poet


 

Visit Jacinta on Facebook:  
(Click Here)


 

For More Information About The Word Project:
http://www.poetryheals.com

(Note:  Website Will Be Functional At First of Year!)






LIFE LINES:
ARTS IN MEDICINE HEALTH INITIATIVE (AIMHI)
In Collaboration with
the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey

Dr. Diane Kaufman, Project Coordinator

                                            

                                  ~ Poetry & Medicine Day, April 29, 2010 ~
(L to R:  Judy Colorado, Exec. Dir. of Patient Care Services at University Hospital; Diane Kaufman, M.D., Child Psychiatrist at University Behavioral Health Care at University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey; John Fox, CPT
 

                             1st Year As IPM Poetry Partner 

                                        Population Served:
     Medical & Dental Students Throughout New Jersey


Our goal with AIMHI is to develop a monthly poetry and expressive arts group to provide an environment where medical and dental students can express themselves creatively, be heard, and become renewed. We believe the creative arts helps physicians stay connected to their humanity and the capacity to listen with their heart.  This five month, two-hour group will be facilitated by a poetry therapist paired with creative artists in non-verbal fields.  Activities will include information and experiential workshops on how to apply creative arts to healthcare for child and adult patients, as well as for the students' self-care. Students will be encouraged to keep a journal for their own use and for feedback and assessment at the end of the project.  Other likely supporters:  Board of Trustees UMDNJ; Arnold P. Gold Foundation.


Diane Kaufman, M.D. is a child psychiatrist and the senior psychiatrist at University Behavioral Healthcare - University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (Newark), and Director of Creative Arts in Healthcare at UMDNJ, a program developed in collaboration with the nursing department of University Hospital.  She is an expressive arts educational facilitator, poet, and poetry therapy trainee.  Dr. Kaufman is the recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award and the UBHC's Master Clinician award.  She has presented on poetry and arts in medicine internationally, most recently in London at the National Symposium for the Arts in End of Life Care.  Dr. Kaufman is the author of Cracking Up and Back Again:  Transformation Through Poetry, a poetry workbook inspired by her poetry group facilitation at a residential substance abuse treatment program in Newark, New Jersey.



To View a YouTube of John & Diane at
the Poetry In Medicine Day 2010 at UMDNJ - New Jersey Medical School:
       (Click Here)

At the end of this YouTube there is a man named Randy Harris from the Wellness, Art and Enrichment Center (where John had done a program the day before) who reads a poem entitled "I Wish" by Alisha, who is standing with him.  The WAE Center offers programs to adults with physical and mental health challenges.  Randy and Alisha were guests of UMDNJ at an Open Mic poetry reading.

                                               _________________________


                                         
                        Seldom are there beautiful sunsets in call rooms
                         only the quiet hum of a hospital heating system,
                         ambulance echoes bouncing between buildings,
                                     the vibration of my fatigued pager.

                             I feel the passion I had for life's little things
                        slowly fading away.  My love of Hitchcock films
                           and moonlit walks are squeezed out of me...
                                                       ~ Sachin B. Patel
                                            Medical Student, Clinical Years
                                                                                                                                               
(from "Call Room", Body Language:  Poems of the Medical Training Experience, BOA Editions, LTD 2006
(Click Here)  to View on Amazon






John Fox's Work
and the Operational & Administrative
Needs of IPM
in 2011







John on Hui PorchJohn devotes countless unpaid hours to The Institute for Poetic Medicine.  For the past two years he has moved our mission forward greatly without any administrative support. Management of the web site, work with the IPM bookkeeper, gathering together the tremendous store of resources we want to offer, assembling information packets, and commnunication with people across the country are only some examples of how John devotes his time, in addition to his rigorous traveling and teaching schedule. 

Along with our poetry partner program there is much to celebrate!  As Denise Levertov wrote in these lines from her poem Beginners:

                                                  We have only begun
                                        To imagine the fullness of life.

                                           How could we tire of hope?
                                                  --so much is in bud.

                 CLICK HERE  to read full "Beginners" poem

This week alone we received inquiries about bringing "poetic medicine" to women in West Virginia who worked in factories as "Rosie the Riveters" in WWII, to medical students at a university in Detroit who want creative writing to be part of their training and to staff involved with pain management clinics at the Veteran's Administration in northern California.

All of these projects require thoughtful planning and development. The availability of that necessary time, with so many administrative needs, is at a premium.   

As this work grows, becomes more dynamic and more people call with interest, John's time, energy and service need to be optimized for doing what he does best:  bringing poetic medicine to people.  To accomplish this, we want to hire a half-time administrator.

A significant new goal in 2011 is for John to design and write (and for IPM to establish) a training program in the practices of poetic medicine and poetry therapy. 

                             You can help us enormously
               by making a donation to the operational
              and administrative needs of the Institute!
                                   
____________
              
     The Institute for Poetic Medicine on the International Stage     
       John at a Symposium sponsored by Korean Institute for Poetry Therapy
                                                 in Seoul on July 12 & 13, 2010

Some of Those Pictured:  
I-Yong Kwon (President, Korean Poets Association) back row, 3rd from the left;  Sr. Lee Hae-In (beloved poet of Korea) 2nd from left, first row; So Young Choi (President, Korean Institute for Poetry Therapy) first row, third from left; Sherry Reiter (John's colleague, Director of the Creative Writing Center) front row, 5th from left; John Fox front row, 5th from right; Professor Chan-Bu Park (Symposium Keynoter) front row, 4th from right.

                                           CLICK HERE
                                        To Learn More
         About The Korean Institute for Poetry Therapy





To Read More
About How Your Help Matters...



(CLICK HERE)

To Learn About IPM Poetry Partners Across America





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Hands

"You led me to a place where my own 6 lines of
poetry would take me to, on the profound journey
to my lost friend.  For that I will be forever grateful."

~ Tom Roberts, Moffett Cancer Center, Tampa, FL