with John Fox, CPT, IPM Staff & Friends

Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine,

I am delighted to announce applications are being accepted at The Institute for Poetic Medicine for the second group for the distance-learning program in the practice of poetry as healer.

Teaching staff and 1st Cohort Students; John Fox at right. Start: June 2012. Students participating in Phase 2, February of 2013.

Course syllabus and training modules were developed by myself, IPM Board members, other practitioners and by members of the first cohort in the field of poetry therapy. Everything about the course is tested, exciting and effective!   We all have learned and will continue to do so. Each student brings not only their intentions and heart to this program but also a wide range of life experience and specific skills.

"With John Fox's guidance, our cohort becomes a beloved community, where we safely practice and witness coming into our own mastery of this complex, life-giving, healing art. I cannot envision a richer formation program for the aspiring poetry facilitator."                     

~ Cathey Capers, M.Ed.   

   Training/Facilitation 

We believe inclusion, collaboration and community are the watchwords of our day, especially as they relate to affirming and building an integrated and open learning process.

We are making this training accessible to people in a wide-range of helping professions who desire to bring it to those they serve, as well as to individuals keenly interested in how they can make use of this healing art of poetic medicine for themselves. Many applicants are poets, private or public, who are drawn to a path of healing and service. Yet others come because they are drawn to discover more of the poetic voice within themselves. In all our work together, I am committed to encouraging a practice of "beginner's mind."   

"Since I was accepted to IPM cohort, I was empowered to write poems. Through John's outstanding mentoring and teaching, I was surprised and happy to discover that poems are there waiting for me to be written. And then, as I write them and share them they bring healing to me and to others. As a novice in writing poetry, I'm amazed at John's skill, spirit and mastery to create an environment/cohort in which your own poetry can be written, nurtured, shared and celebrated."

~ Witek Nowosiad  

   Chaplain & ACPE Supervisor at Children's Medical Center, Dallas, TX  

Why Practice Poetic Medicine?  

  

We may have lost faith in our ability to write poems,
just as we have lost faith in our ability to heal. Recovering the poet strengthens the healer and sets free the unique song that
is at the heart of every life.

 

~ Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

from the Preface to Poetic Medicine

  

If you believe training to become a practitioner Certified in Poetic Medicine will help you to create a better world, consider applying. I am confident this training will help you recover the poet within yourself. The process of this training will increase not only your faith but by providing people a pathway with the healing power of poetry, give you a direct experience that affirms your ability to live in the world as a healer.

 

By bringing poem-making into the lives of every people, it is possible to attend effectively, and with generative love, to the heart brokenness that is part of all our lives. Poetic Medicine training can make this a meaningful and actual step for you.

 

I was invited to bring poetry-as-healer to men at California Men's Colony prison. They were in a training program to act as hospice volunteers to their fellow inmates who were dying. They had done deep work to discover a level of compassion and selflessness that I found moving. Yet we also discovered together that poetry could help them.

 

"John's workshop with the men truly supported them by helping them find their voice in expressing their personal life changing experiences while dealing with death and dying. John assisted them in discovering the tool that healing words can be when sitting with a dying inmate as well as the great gift that the power of listening can be for them. The poetry that the men produced was powerful, poignant and heartfelt. Thank you again for giving these marginalized men in our society an opportunity to experience the tenderness, fierceness and human qualities of life through the gift of poetry."

 

~ Lorie Adoff

   Director of Spiritual Care Services

   California Men's Colony Prison

   San Luis Obispo, California

  

The intention of our training program is to do this kind of work. There is no lack of need in the world and part of the training, especially in Phase 3, is to work with your cohort to create your pathway. We find that the world is responding! There is in fact a spirit of call and response...

The hour is striking so close above me,

so clear and sharp,

that all my senses ring with it.

I feel now there is a power in me

to grasp and give shape to my world.

 

I know that nothing has ever been real

without my beholding it.

All becoming has needed me.

My looking ripens things

and they come toward me, to meet and be met.

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Book for the Hours of Prayer

translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows 

People certified by IPM will have completed Phase 2 and Phase 3. At the end of Phase 1, with its emphasis on personal creative exploration and individual skill building, students will be given a certificate of completion.  

 

We will choose and shape this cohort of learners with care and thoughtfulness.  We are planning on a registration of nine participants. This is, for us, what the word cohort means: A collaborative educational model wherein a small number of students share the same core classes throughout the program and build a supportive learning community that welcomes and honors diversity in all its forms.

  

Who Can Apply? 

You can! This training will deepen and enhance the professional practice of any healing and helping profession. Individuals who are aware of the healing power of poetry will find in the course a way to help others awaken to that experience. John has worked closely with people working in education, pastoral care, hospice, medicine, cancer support, the arts, social action and psychology. The most recent cohort included students from a very wide-range of backgrounds. It is important to know that while there is something to learn that the Institute will bring, our learning is not only from the course material. What we have to learn will come from one another as well. Feeling a sense of attunment with the image of the circle is important here. The acceptance of your application will include an invitation to bring to the circle an abundance of your creative gifts and skills, your respect and a willingness to listen.     

A thoughtful Certification Committee of Geoff Oelsner, Janet Childs, (both left) and John Fox will review applications.

We learn where we have work to do.  

~ Stephen Levine

Our means of study and interaction include an online learning community environment, classroom time online, and individual mentoring with me. There will be more details in the next Poetic Medicine Journal; a special issue devoted entirely to the curriculum, the application form, and a detailed description of each of the three phases with student comments about what they found to be of value. You may, however, send in a request for an application any time. We will begin to review them after the first of the year.

We have chosen three words to describe each phase:

Create ...   Connect ...   Community ...

At IPM we recognize that this dynamic process of creating, connecting and joining in community truly takes a village. Those who are not called to embark on this training program may choose to support and strengthen the entire circle and committed individual students with their financial gifts to help defray student expenses. 

I look forward to hearing from those of you who may feel a sense of readiness to join me on this exciting new endeavor. Your questions are welcome.

Some Facts: A Three-Phase Training Program

Phase 1 of the Poetic Medicine Facilitator Training Program will focus on the intensive reading and use of my book Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. That is combined with extensive class material written by John with input from the first cohort. Central to Phase 1 are 11 on-line sessions based on chapters from Poetic Medicine. Students work closely with one another in small groups between sessions. 

Phase 2 is focused on learning and integrating optimum ways to practice and apply poetry as healer. Each of the 14 online sessions explores a particular theme related to the practice of poetic medicine. Phase 2 includes a wider range of study material including Biblio/Poetry Therapy: the Interactive Process by Arleen McCarty Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry. The special issue of PMJ will include the class themes of Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Phase 3 focuses on more in-depth learning from and contact with people who bring poetic medicine/poetry as healer to a wide range of people and circumstances. Phase 3 will include writing papers for self-reflection, thematic explorations and research. Phase 3 is where students bring poetry-as-healer into practice.

The faculty and mentors come from various helping fields and professions--all skilled and practiced in the applications of poetry-as-healer to their field of practice.

The Costs of the Poetic Medicine Training

Phase 1: $3300;   Phase 2: $3600;   Phase 3: $3100

Some partial scholarships are available.    

Speaking of Community

Becoming a student of the training is not the only way to be involved! Even if you do not apply you may deeply believe in what we are doing. You may want to help bring the healing power of poetry into the world by helping students.

If you would like to jumpstart this training by contributing financially toward scholarships and student travel, we welcome your support. Why? Because it takes a village, many hands make a miracle and you can throw your hat into the ring...these images all apply.

Application review is underway for the training set to begin in mid-June. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and all determinations will be made by April 15. 

Please let IPM know if you are interested, have questions, and/or would like to receive an application. You can write for more information or request an application at john@poeticmedicine.org.

A more complete description of the program will be published and available as soon as we can complete it. 

Sincerely Yours,

John Fox and The Institute for Poetic Medicine

Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine, 

I'm pleased to send you this announcement about the Poetic Medicine Training Program beginning in June 2015. We are inviting applications for the 2nd cohort.  The article gives a clear idea of what is included in training. Your inquiries are welcome! Please write to john@poeticmedicine.org.

This special edition of the PMJ also includes the announcement of two upcoming retreats with me and a reminder about the launch of the new Institute for Poetic Medicine web site. I am very excited about that!  

Please look forward to the Winter Edition of the Poetic Medicine Journal that will arrive late February. You'll learn about the Institute's new poetry partner programs taking place across the country:

a maximum security prison

in Sterling, Colorado

a community center in the Collingwood neighborhood

in Cleveland, Ohio

a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center

in Schenectady, New York

and once again with immigrant and refugee youth       

in Tukwila, Washington  

You'll learn more about our poetry partners: Wayne Gilbert, Cindy Washabaugh, Judith Prest and Merna Ann Hect who offer this dynamic healing work with poetry. 

The Winter Edition of the PMJ will bring you two special features:

• There will be an article and on-line interview with Karen Morris, a psychoanalyst with a private practice in Honesdale, Pennsylvania and New York City. Karen's poetry and work concerns lifting the silence about and bringing greater attention and awareness to global and domestic minor sex-trafficking and child sex-tourism, a moral challenge hidden-in-plain-sight and is endemic in America and around the world. 

• We will share exciting news of a project developing within the Veterans Administrative system to bring narrative and poetry-to-heal to Vets. Bruce Kelly, M.D., at Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina, is a guiding force putting this initiative forward. Later in 2015, I will participate in a conference at Charles George VA in a three-day program called Poetry for Wounded Warriors: Words, Recovery and Healing. The sponsor of this event is Americans for the Arts on behalf of the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military. Partners in this effort include the Medical Humanities Program at Charles George VA and the Center for Arts in Medicine in Asheville. If you care and are concerned about the lives and well-being of our Veterans--especially if you have a VA in your vicinity, you will want to know more about this!

We will offer a very rich array of new book resources for poetry-as-healer. 

There will be a special recognition given to the 20th year anniversary of my first book, Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making!

The Winter Edition of the Poetic Medicine Journal will be inspiring and useful!

For now, please take time to learn about the training program. You may not be drawn to this training but if you know someone who might be, please share this with them!

I wish you an abundance of good in this new and fresh year.

With kind regards,

John Fox

The Institute for Poetic Medicine

You Are Invited to Check It Out!

The new web site for The Institute for Poetic Medicine will very likely "go live" by early February of 2015! We will have more to share about the Poetry Partners Program, Poetic Medicine in Action and the Community of Poets, A Great Resource Section, among many other features.

What an honor and privilege it is to work with John in re-creating the website for IPM. My passion is to co-create with people who are making a positive difference in the world through my love of web design. The work that IPM does is amazing so when the IPM Board accepted my proposal of a new site for IPM, it was a dream come true. 

As we near completion, I look forward to the day when the site will be uploaded for all of you to experience. 

~ Billie Sommerfeld

  Unique Web Design

  www.uniquewebdesignandprinting.com