POETRY THERAPY
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The act of writing
and reading poetry
creates a sacred
space in which we
can grieve, heal,
rejoice, play, rest,
plan, reconsider. We
explore our
frontiers through Poetry
Therapy.
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Since attending trainings with
John Fox, former president of
the National Association For
Poetry Therapy, in 1998 and
again in 1999, Domenic
Tamborriello has often used poetry
therapy to
help his clients heal and grow.
To date, he has facilitated 49
poetry groups each lasting a
minimum of ten weeks. That means
he has facilitated over 500
sessions of poetry therapy. He
is convinced that poetry is the
single most efficient and
effective therapeutic tool he
has ever encountered. In other
words, people go further,
faster, and easier towards their
goals using poetry than any
other kind of therapy. What
would make this so? Poetry
strengthens the connection
between your head and your heart
easier and better than anything
else.
If
you could find and develop a
tool that allowed you more and
more self-awareness and that
tool helped you think about the
challenges in your life more
creatively than you have in
years, if that tool helped you
move past the feelings that have
left you stuck in so many
situations, would you want it?
If I told you that you could
have that tool with much less
effort than almost any other
kind of therapy, would you
consider it? I hope you would
because that is exactly what
using poetry as part of the
healing journey has been for
many, many people.
Would poetry therapy be
something that would help
someone with my issues?
Almost certainly. I have yet to
see any client not be helped
using poetry. I have seen it do
more for someone with
obsessive-compulsive disorder
than medication did. So whether
you’re struggling with low
self-esteem, relationship
issues, family-of-origin issues,
career issues, anger issues, or
just about anything, I am
confident that what you get from
poetry group will help you.
What would I have to do?
Nothing that you don’t want to.
You wouldn’t have homework. You
wouldn’t have writing or reading
assignments. You wouldn’t be
expected to learn the craft of
poem-making. This is not to turn
people into poets or to turn
people who write poetry into
better poets or to get good
poets published. This is only
about developing a tool that
increases your self-awareness
through writing. All you’d be
asked to do is to show up at
poetry group with a notebook, a
pen, and an open mind.
How does it work? Poetry
group meets weekly. Usually in
the evenings but sometimes
earlier or on the weekend based
on the needs of the people in
the group. Groups are between 4
and 8 people. They will never
grow beyond eight people.
It starts with a Check In round.
This gives people a chance to
talk about what’s going on in
their lives; what they’re
struggling with, what they’re
celebrating. Check In Round
shows people who seem to have
little in common that there is
much more common ground than
they may have imagined.
After Check In, I provide a
stimulus for writing. It could
be a single word, a poem or two,
a video of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam,
or anything else. Following some
discussion about what was
presented, you would have 20 to
25 minutes to write. With that
format, two things happen.
First; it’s only 20 to 25
minutes. That means no one is
expecting a masterpiece. As a
result, the performance anxiety
evaporates pretty quickly.
Secondly, you have enough time
to think about what you want to
write, but not over-think. That
means that what people write
comes more from their gut than
their head. Because of that, it
almost has to be beautiful
because it’s so real, so
authentic. Each person then has
a chance to read aloud what
they’ve written. Someone reads
once and that is followed by
some discussion of and reaction
to what was just read. That
person reads a second time to
give us a chance to hear what we
missed the first time and then
more discussion follows. Then
the next person reads and so on
and so on.
What we find is that this
process frequently reveals the
most beautiful sides of a
person. Listening to the poems
is the equivalent of being in a
place where hand grenades of
beauty are exploding all around
you. Trust me, if you try poetry
group once, you’ll be amazed at
what comes out of you and
everyone else in the room.
How much does it cost?
Fees for poetry group run
between $10 and $45.00 per
session based on ability to pay.
Can I see some examples of what
some people have written?
Yes. This stuff is so cool. I
can’t wait for you to read it.
Just click on any of the titles
below. And don’t be intimidated
if you think you’d never be able
to write anything this good.
Almost every person who has been
in poetry group never wrote
poetry before and would never
have seen themselves as being
able to do this.
