The Poetry Pharmacy Returns

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

"It takes solidarity and generosity of spirit to build a society in which anyone can feel safe. Empathy can be hard to find, especially for people who look or sound different, or believe different things to us. But when we allow ourselves to be pitted against each other, and to be ruled by the meaner emotions, we dig our own graves alongside those of the people we abandon. ??

Bookwomble ...It's only when we understand our essential commonality that we can protect ourselves: not as individual humans, but as members of an indivisible whole." - William Sieghart #holocaustremembranceday 5y

TrishB So true. 5y

Weaponxgirl I was read this as a child and it has always stayed with me. 5y

Bookwomble @Weaponxgirl It's powerful, coming as it did from Niemöller's initial position of support for the Nazis, transformed into opposition as he saw the results of their ideology. I thought I'd got an image including the full list of oppressed that Niemöller wrote of, but see the one I chose misses off socialists. Important not to forget that the Nazis also 'exterminated' LGBT+ people, disabled people, Roma people and many others 🕯 5y

Weaponxgirl @Bookwomble it‘s true, I have a book on how disabled children were treated by the nazis. I haven‘t had the strength to read it yet. I think it‘s so important when we see hate being fanned for a certain group to stop and ask what the fanners motivations actually are. 5y

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

"You want to lash out at the parts of your self that seem to hold you back. At moments like that, it's important to be able to sit down and speak gently within yourself, as if saying a prayer or reading a poem. Whichever part of you is unhappy, reassure it: accept your many selves, and allow them to speak both to you and to each other."
- William Sieghart

Trashcanman ♥️ 5y

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

"We are made beautiful and glorious not by the ways in which we differ from the rest of the biosphere, but by our place, perhaps unique in the universe, in this community of living things."
- William Sieghart

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

Your ancestors did not survive
everything that nearly ended them
for you to shrink yourself
to make someone else
comfortable.

This sacrifice is your warcry,
be loud,
be everything
and make them proud.

"I Am My Ancestor's Dream" by Nikita Gill
Prescribed for: People-pleasing; lack of confidence

My own ancestors were farm hands and shrimpers working the Ribble estuary. This photograph is of the 1913 "Shrimp Strike" protest.

TrishB I like the sound of that book 👍🏻 5y

Bookwomble @TrishB This and the first Poetry Pharmacy book are both wonderful. They include well known and (to me, anyway) less well known poems, with a thoughtful introduction to each by Sieghart. 5y

TrishB Just had a look at them, definitely something I would like. 5y

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

“Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.”

- "Rain" by Raymond Carver
Prescribed for: Unkindness to Oneself

Leftcoastzen ❤️Raymond Carver 5y

Bookwomble @Leftcoastzen I recognise his name, though as far as I'm aware this is the only thing of his I've read, which I obviously like 🙂 Would you have a book recommendation for him? 5y

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

"He visits my town once a year.
He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar.
I spend all my money on him.

Who, girl, your man?

No, a mango."

- Amir Khusro
Prescribed for Romantic Exhaustion

Aimeesue I feel ya, sister. Mmmmmmmango. 5y

Bookwomble @Aimeesue I love mangoes, too 😊 5y

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart

"I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty,
nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
men who need to be seen with passable women.
But now that I am in love with a place
which doesn't care how I look, or if I'm happy,
happy is how I look, and that's all."
- "Weathering" by Fleur Adcock
Prescribed for Insecurity about Aging

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Bookwomble

The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope | William Sieghart