POETRY PRESCRIPTION CHOSEN BY DEBORAH ALMA
Poetry Prescription is a series of curated around one of eight themes: joy, becoming, calm, comfort, inspiration, words for love, first aid, and wild remedy. The series is brought to us by The Poetry Pharmacy.
Every collection welcomes its readers with the same greeting: “Life is lived with feeling—and these poems will bring you reassurance.” These “carefully curated prescriptions in verse” offer a wide variety of poetic voices, styles, forms, and eras for readers to explore slowly in small doses or consume all at once.
In the introduction to First Aid, Alma writes
These poems acknowledge that the world is often complicated, confusing and frightening but they work their particular magic and will inspire resilience and hope. You will find though-provoking poems that help readers process emotions, and words that celebrate joy and the beauty of everyday life, while poems of connection explore love and human empathy. This book serves as a kind of literary medicine, offering comfort, support, and perspective.
Not only would any (or all) of these collections be a terrific resource for educators looking for poems to infuse into their classrooms, but they would also be lovely additions to the classroom library. I can also imagine using them as mentor texts for students to curate their own collections of poetry prescriptions around a theme, complete with an introduction modeled on the ones written by Deborah Alam.