I believe that poetry can help to make you better. Poetry is essential, not a frill or a nicety. It comes to all of us when we most need it. As soon as we are in any kind of crisis, or anguish, that is when we reach out for poetry, or find ourselves writing a poem for the first time.
I am currently "fellow in health and literature" in the English School of Newcastle University, and I have been exploring how creative writing, particularly poetry, can be used in a health context. I got involved with this kind of work through my own experience. I have advanced breast cancer, and poetry is what keeps me afloat. Without poems my journey through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and the general ups and downs of illness, would have been unthinkable.
But why is poetry so important? Why do people who have never read or written a poem in their lives find themselves suddenly searching for a poetic language to make sense of a bereavement, a difficult diagnosis, or a change in their lives?
First, poetry uses images to make us see things in a fresh way. So in the case of the physical body, poetry shows us pictures and metaphors that we can use, rather like visualisations. In my case I chose to imagine my body as a house, and wrote many poems during my treatment about "living in the new extension" or about my fears: Sudden Collapses in Public Places. Poetry helped me to step out of the difficult present and to use my imagination to be somewhere else. Once you have found a metaphor that works, you can explore and adjust it, creating new views, opening other doors, building scaffolding, and feeling more in control of your body.
One of the hardest things about being unwell is feeling disempowered and out of control. Writing poetry can make you feel in charge again. Also, many of the poems I wrote were begun in waiting rooms. Waiting for an appointment can make one feel hopeless and helpless, and I found that doing some absorbing creative activity in the waiting room completely altered the experience.
Poetry also gives us form. It provides a structure that can contain chaos and difficulty. It can make a mess manageable. When I work with doctors and patients using poetry we often use simple poetic forms, such as sonnets or haikus, to write about our experiences. I love the atmosphere in a room when a group of people are working on the making of a poem. It has a lovely honey calmness about it. Writers can take their scribblings, diaries and notes and develop these into a poetic shape.
There is something very soothing about working out the jigsaw of a poem, even though the subject matter might be upsetting. Understanding and working with the craft of poetry frees us from the emotional glare of a situation and lessens our fears. Eventually you have a poem that you can carry around with you, that has the pleasing form of a well-made object, which can communicate itself to others without frightening them off.
Poetry is the pioneer of language, and we can express things in new ways. One of the things I have found most interesting is developing new vocabularies for pain. The language of pain is overused and cliched (sharp, nagging, throbbing). If we employ a new language it is immediately effective and almost shocking. My hot flushes are like a thousand red ants marching up my body. My joints are rusty cranes. My spine is deep frozen.
We can use this new vocabulary to communicate to others what our pain is like. For doctors this can be incredibly helpful. So much can be lost or misunderstood in a medical consultation, and often doctors and patients cannot find a language to communicate effectively with one another. Try describing your arthritis to your doctor using, perhaps, the vocabulary of music, or fishing.
Lastly, poetry is all about music and rhythm, and music comforts and lulls us. The process of writing can be described as a way of bringing different parts of someone together, of literally creating harmony. The cadences and rhythms of poetry calm us and allow us to relax. Sometimes I do an exercise which asks participants to think of an important rhythm from their past. For me the sound of trains chugging in the distance was always a very happy sound. Then we write using that rhythm, creating poems that echo somewhere inside us.
Poetry should be part of every modern hospital, and not just something to keep patients amused. It's a powerful force, which can help us through the darkest times. I would like to see more writers-in-residence in the health system, more poetry books in waiting rooms, more poems on the walls, more training in creative writing for doctors, and more poems printed on primary care leaflets. Poetry can save lives.
· Julia Darling is a novelist (The Taxi Driver's Daughter; Penguin) and poet (Sudden Collapses in Public Places; Arc Press)
