The Poetry Remedy

I found this lovely book when a friend sent me a video of Helena Bonham Carter wearing a giant pair of reading glasses, reading and commenting on Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese,” which is listed in this book as a remedy for “self-recrimination.” William Sieghart is a self-fashioned poetry healer who meets with “patients” in various states of emotional unease, and he responds by prescribing a particular poem as a remedy. I read it from front to back, a little bit every night, but also bought a used copy of the British edition (entitled The Poetry Pharmacy) to have on my bookshelf as future medicine. I know I will love revisiting this beautiful collection.