POETRY CLINIC

GOT A PROBLEM? HAVE A YEARNING?

Ask us a question or describe your quandary. It could be a pain, a longing, a trouble, a wound. Or a life event, a celebration, a transition. Every month, our poet-in-residence will select a couple of letters and prescribe a poetic tonic.

this month's

POET-IN-RESIDENCE

kazim-ali

Kazim Ali is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and professor. His recent books include Inquisition (Wesleyan University Press, 2018) and All One’s Blue (Harper Collins India, 2016). His honors include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His poetry and essays have been featured in many literary journals and magazines including The American Poetry Review,Boston ReviewBarrow StreetJubilatThe Iowa ReviewWest Branch and Massachusetts Review, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2007.

LETTERS

Asked by: J.L., Maple Valley, WA, USA
Answered by: Bhanu Kapil
Asked by: I., Brighton, UK
Answered by: Bhanu Kapil
Asked by: L., USA
Answered by: Bhanu Kapil
Asked by: F., London, UK
Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip
Asked by: CSG, Montreal, Canada
Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip
Asked by: E., Bay Area, USA
Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip

Asked by: J.L., Maple Valley, WA, USA

Answered by: Bhanu Kapil

Asked by: I., Brighton, UK

Answered by: Bhanu Kapil

Asked by: L., USA

Answered by: Bhanu Kapil

Asked by: F., London, UK

Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip

Asked by: CSG, Montreal, Canada

Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip

Asked by: E., Bay Area, USA

Answered by: M. NourbeSe Philip

POETS

about

POETRY CLINIC

Poetry can liberate the imagination–and be a product of an imagination unhindered. Poetry is also communal, conjuring and singing voices together. In poetry, the world can become motion and play. Language slides into magic and back again into landscape, rocks, rivers, handshakes, and banisters. Into anything really. Its materials are free and everywhere. In poetry we make the world. And it’s in that grounded imagination where attention grows, new kin can be made, old kin re-found. One might very naturally also find solace, succor — or healing.

Living in a vulnerable body is often tough. It can also be a source of wonder and joy. Poetry Clinic provides a poetic response to the complex situation of being a human during this time of climate crisis and cascading conflicts, the ongoing pandemic, and other social and environmental upheavals. Poetry Clinic offers a remedy to cultivate new relationships among readers, poets, and poems in a time of profound uncertainty. It provides an online platform for poets to engage with readers looking for a poetic response to living, including rituals, losses, and wonder. 

In short, Poetry Clinic serves as a portal for users to request poems that address specific life situations they’re facing. 

 

We invite you to email us with your quandary, any experience or circumstance, for which a poem might be a balm — or a disruption, an opening of sorts. A poem might become a charm to keep in your pocket, or an apotropaic device to keep you safe. Submit a brief letter describing a particular predicament you’re facing – a pain, a longing, a trouble, a wound, anything at all that hurts. Or a life event, a celebration, a hope. Poetry Clinic is the online equivalent of an apothecary, but instead of dispensing herbs and potions, we offer up poems to help soothe a moment of your heartache or worry–or to join in celebrating births, marriages, love, transitions, the passionate transitory. We invite guest poets, writers and singers to offer a selection of texts or songs for you, depending on what you tell us in your letter. 

We respect the vulnerability involved in sharing an aspect of your world with strangers. We promise to hold your words with the spirit of care and friendship. Every submission will be read, but only a few will receive a response from the poet-in-residence. Every month, with your consent, and with an option of anonymity, we will publish a handful of exchanges of queries and poetic prescriptions in the Letters section. Over time, our hope is that Poetry Clinic will build up a cabinet of divinations that bring moments of comfort, a dispensary of tonics and spells for you, and for you to share with the people you love.

ABOUT US

The project was imagined by two people who have served each other poetic prescriptions as a mode of friendship over years. Basically, we’ve been sending each other poems for a long, long time.

Poetry Clinic is an outgrowth of Uncertainty Academy, an experimental space for learning to live more creatively with uncertainty and part of the Education Ecologies Collective. Questions? thepoetryclinic@gmail.com

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Suparna Choudhury is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer, working between cognitive neuroscience, transcultural psychiatry and creative writing. She is cofounder of Uncertainty Academy and a member of Educational Ecologies Collective.

Joshua-moses

Joshua Moses is a professor of anthropology and environmental studies, author of Anxious Experts: Disaster Response and Spiritual Care from 9/11 to the Climate Crisis, and cofounder of Education Ecologies Collective and the Uncertainty Academy.

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