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In difficult times, people turn to poetry, reading, and writing for solace and peace. In emotionally intense and traumatic times, people use poetry to process and understand the lived eyepieces. The havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the emotional and psychological well-being of individuals all across the world. Poetry has emerged as a savior in these difficult times. A phenomenon, "lockdown poems", came into existence as individuals all across the globe processed and shared their lived experiences of isolation, pain, and suffering through poems. In the present paper, students of a management program process and share their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent lockdowns, and their community work experience. Poetry as a therapeutic and hope-building tool is discussed in the paper along with the original poems written by the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the role of personal writing in processes involving writing, processing loss and grief, and identity consolidation, employed in shaping the character of Emily Starr in the book "Emily of New Moon" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, well known for her series "Anne of Green Gables" and for the character of Anne Shirley. Emily, who is dealing with orphanhood following the childhood loss of both parents in a short span of time, uses writing to vent her feelings when in distress and as a way of maintaining contact with her father who died, by writing to him. Later on, the possibility of renewing her emotional connection with her mother through an encounter with the room where she grew up and by writing to her, removes Emily from her state of existential loneliness and brings her closer to her true self, manifested in the creative and spontaneous elements within her. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical paper provides an experiential account of learning from self-help books by the teachers of the management stream from the Indian context. The current environment is posing new and unprecedented challenges to academicians, management teachers being one of them. Self-help books have for centuries helped readers to deal with such challenges. Hence, this exploratory study, using the narration method, has inquired through qualitative interviews with management teachers about their personal experiences of reading self-help books. The findings provided a broad understanding of how they learn, get inspiration, get the guidance, get healed and thus cope with the challenges in their life as a result of reading self-help books which may be extended to Poetry Therapy or unstructured Bibliotherapy in some ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher) study through autobiographical close readings of several poems as a means to understand death within what the author calls eternal poetic time. Moving beyond the author's childhood's static image of death, the paper suggests that the ephemeral nature of life is not something to fear, but makes living more beautiful and eternal through the making and sharing of poetry and art. This paper is the first part of a three-paper study, which includes original poetry by the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possible role of Poetry Therapy in the treatment of a young adult with Eco-Anxiety. The subject is a 21-year-old male from Vienna, Austria, suffering from a severe form of Eco-Anxiety and Eco-Depression. Poetry Therapy with 10 sessions was conducted on a 14-day rotation in 2021, with each session lasting 90 min. Through Poetry Therapy, patients can better understand themselves and repressed psychological content, learn, and find new creative ways to cope with Eco-Anxiety and Eco-Depression, and focus on the anxiety antagonist Hope. The analysis shows that Poetry Therapy helps to view anxiety as an externalized object in a more detached way, to gain new insights into how to deal with it. Furthermore, the patients' words, when read frequently, have a powerful effect on his psychological well-being. Poetry Therapy improved the patient's quality of life and helped him to cope in everyday life again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates a method of representation of research methodologies and philosophical positioning expressed through the use of poetics, allowing for a more playful space for critical reflection in qualitative research. Methodologies and ontological and epistemological positioning can take on many forms within the research process and can pose a conundrum for the novice researcher. During my exploration for a suitable methodology whilst I undertook a Professional Doctorate in Health and Wellbeing there emerged a selection of poems debating the merits, in addition to the limitations, of the potential options available; all dependent on the philosophical stance I chose to embrace. Within this process, I was encouraged to use this art-based method of poetic expression within the doctoral trajectory which continued throughout the journey to facilitate reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual Poetry and nursing have much to say about humanity during and after the global lockdown. Whereas nurses have worked on the front lines to treat infected patients both physically and mentally, poets have played a tremendous role in relieving students of negative energy, motivating them to pursue their dreams and hopes. Building on Thematic Analysis and the Reflective Learning Approach, this paper examines the relationship between virtual poetry and nursing education. One focus group from Agadir city had to study English at ISPITS institute for 14 h, using Google Meet and, at a later stage, they were entailed to evaluate their learning experiences with the Online English Class. The results unveiled that the Moroccan student nurses share a great concern for humanity and that virtual poetry could be used as an instructional medium in shaping their personality traits and reinvigorating their academic goals about the nursing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns young adults who came to Sweden from Afghanistan as unaccompanied refugee minors (UMs) and their engagement with poetry and other creative activities. The aim was to explore how UMs use poetic writing and other creative activities to handle resettlement challenges. Seven young men and six young women, aged 18–24, participated in semi-structured interviews. The material was analyzed using the three components of poetry therapy, developed by Mazza. Three themes were identified: (1) Encouragement; (2) Creative expressions as a "safe place"; and (3) A sense of recognition. Through creative expressions, our participants could understand and handle the emotional difficulties and the insecurity associated with resettlement. Poetic writing was a way to convey personal experiences of injustices, a source of self-understanding, and a way to establish new social networks. We discuss and present suggestions on how poetry and other creative activities can be integrated in interventions toward UMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, drawn from the author's keynote address presented at the National Association for Poetry Therapy annual conference on 29 April 2022, provides a professional and personal perspective on the benefits of poetry therapy in promoting unity and facilitating healthy transitions. The power of poetry therapy lies in its effectiveness in both helping clients through painful or difficult emotions, and in helping them find wonder and beauty and renewed vitality. The search for unity is considered in the context of unity with others, within the self, and with Nature. Important transitions are considered both as expectable developmental changes, such as aging, and as responses to unexpected or external events. The paper emphasizes the importance of hope and the role of imagination in poetry therapy and also suggests a wide range of appropriate literature, including both published poetry, and a number of the author's own poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyses the therapeutic power of poetry in the form of poetic epiphanies and epiphanic knowledge in medicine, in two illness narratives of Ian McEwan. The first novel Saturday deals with a patient suffering from Huntington's disease. The second novel The Children Act deals with a leukemia patient. Both of these novels show how literary and creative art forms like poetry can generate epiphanic moments for the patient and epiphanic knowledge for medical professionals which act as moments of opportunity to cultivate and encourage empathetic clinical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of interaction with metaphors on a measure of creative potential: ideational fluency. For this purpose, 150 Mexican college students were selected. They were assigned to two experimental conditions (major and minor interaction with metaphors) and a control group. The CREA Creative Intelligence Test was used as a measure of ideational fluency and two instruments were developed for the presentation of metaphors. As a control measure, an instrument for the presentation of synonyms was developed. All instruments were designed and presented in Superlab. The analysis of covariance showed statistically significant differences (p <.001) between the means of the three groups, where high scores were consistent with the groups with the greatest exposure. The discussion of the findings revolves around the cognitive implications of metaphors and its possible applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the book Tribute to Freud, by Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) (1886–1961). In the book, H.D. – an important person in the modernist poetry scene – presents her psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). She describes how literature, sculptures, mythology, and symbols were central to their dialogues. I have analysed these dialogues with respect to the three components of poetry therapy, the receptive, the expressive, and the symbolic. Based on the analysis, I discuss how poetry therapy and psychodynamic practice can be integrated and how practitioners from the two orientations can learn from and inspire each other. I reflect on the presence of symbols and mythology in the book and suggest that the symbolic component, which has received the least attention, could be strengthened by the psychodynamic tradition's acknowledgement of symbols and mythology. I also discuss how poetry therapy could inspire psychodynamic practitioners to acknowledge the expressive component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this paper review the efficacy of poetry therapy and introduce a curriculum to be used in the provision of a co-facilitative poetry therapy group process which involves a professional poet and a therapist. Drawing upon best practices of poetry therapy, the paper demonstrates that this innovative approach not only contributes to the field but is transferable among a variety of client populations. The authors present a curriculum, writing exercises, samples of poems, and include a plan for efficacy assessment in the context of a domestic violence survival group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of literacy in the lives of women who are recovering from substance abuse. It discusses the work and products of a one-year literacy workshop in which participants were immersed in reading, writing and sharing of different writings and works of arts. The work with the women converged around their poetry, prose and free writing during their literacy workshop and journaling. Conversations about their writing revealed four themes: (1) finding one’s voice, (2) shifting self-perceptions, (3) writing as an outlet for expression and for sharing traumatic events, and (4) talking about addiction. The overarching concept of these four themes is literacy as a healing tool. This paper discusses the role of writing as a tool for healing from traumatic events and dealing with addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This semester-long study attempted to investigate 122 (M: 21; F: 101) Taiwanese undergraduates' responses to bibliotherapy and two textbooks in an Advanced English Reading classroom. Data collection included an anonymous 6-point Likert scaled questionnaire with a space for free comments and the students' reflection papers to show their perceptions. The results of the study showed that bibliotherapy effectively helped the students (a) understand the importance of self-knowledge, life growth, emotion management, positive thinking, and behavior awareness, (b) understand the importance of (literature) reading, (literature) reading course, and the benefits of (literature) reading, and (c) enhance self-understanding, positive thinking, mental growth, and (positive) behavioral change. Moreover, the study found that the two textbooks could effectively boost the students' bibliotherapeutic energy, including their positive thinking ability, mental growth, and mature behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholarship suggests Black and Brown youth disproportionately experience stressors that can disrupt cognitive and emotional regulatory processes, the recognize the resilience and innovation that Black and Brown youth have demonstrated amidst exposure to systemic stressors. Given this reality, school counselors are responsible for adopting strategies that center Black and Brown youth's internal capacity to foster authentic, emotional, development. This paper describes a culturally responsive school counseling intervention that leverages evidence-based counseling theory and hip-hop cultural practices to aid student's internal social and emotional potential. Specifically, the amalgamation of Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy and Motivational Interviewing offers school counselors a social and emotional learning framework designed to engage with the complex intersectionality and emotional experiences of Black and Brown youth. A conceptual framing is presented herein, followed by tangible strategies for school counselors, an illustrative case study, and implications for practice and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of a loved one can create a tear in the fabric of meaning. Grieving involves remaking meaning. In therapy, events can be emplotted into stories, which can return some sense of coherence to the bereaved. In this paper, I present a way of narrating loss through a narrative therapy approach of retelling. This involved writing found poems, known as rescued speech poems, from the conversations of people who had lost a loved partner. The found poetry sought to bring an order to grieving and to polish the beauty of key moments following loss. For one participant, the found poetry amplified a narrative of the biography of the loved one. For another, the poems added beauty to a memory of her deceased partner. Thus, rescued speech poems—judiciously selected from speech, and sensitively arranged on the page—can provide another way to facilitate vibrant meaning-making of life after loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much of the “Sylvia Plath” we know is a storied life rather than a real one? Can the two be separated? This is complex given that Plath’s final collectionArielwas published twice by husband then daughter. How do we (re)construct Plath as a real person when the narrative around her death is enveloped by presumptions and stereotypes of suicide? This paper explores poems from both versions ofArielwith the idea that, rather than living for her suicide, Plath explored experiences of living in a space in-between wanting to live and wanting to die. This passionate ambivalence is demonstrated in poems such asTulips,Edge, andLady Lazarus. This paper will not presume that the poems withinArielrepresent her whole life; rather, they represent the story of her life during the time in which they were written, tangible artefacts of her inspiration from 1961 to 1963. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Commencing within the trajectory of perseverance, this paper sets out to examine the ways in which the phenomenon of waiting has been shrewdly explored by Niyi Osundare inWaiting Laughters[Osundare, N. (1990).Waiting laughters. Lagos: Malthouse]. Waiting is considered in the context of contemporary African literature and the poet’s own Yoruba tradition. It goes on to argue that the poet extends meanings of waiting far beyond their conventional limits, thus making it a complex, multi-levelled construct deployed as an instrument of resistance in the face of deplorable socio-economic and political conditions of contemporary African states. The paper identifies several manifestations of waiting: as patience, as natural progression, as social predicament, as historical inevitability, as humour, as laughter therapy, and as resistance. Each of these notions of waiting is an element of Osundare’s preoccupation with ways of overcoming the inequities, deprivations and injustices of African nations, and thus offers strategies for minimizing the effects of oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the father absence and/or misattachment with depleting effects psychologically, personally and collectively on the daughter. The concept unfolds through a series of a woman's dreams along with the poetry and dreams of Sylvia Plath, an American poetess from the mid-twentieth century. The perspective of Jungian analytical psychology is complimented by that of French psychoanalyst Andre Green. The cross-currents of these thinkers bring forth the interweaving of poetry and analytical psychology. Both examine the lack of attention to the detrimental effects of absent fathers and how this contributes to the well-being and creative expression of daughters – or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a poem created whilst conducting an inquiry into one of the endings of stories told of, and by, people living with mental illness: this story ending is grouped by a word (and social movement) widely known as Recovery in mental health care. Recovery, however, is not a word commonly used in the places where this Inquiry occurred. Nor is it a category of story ending often told about Australian Aboriginal people living with a diagnosis of chronic mental illness. This inquiry was, and is, thus focussed on how the current endings of stories that surround Australian Aboriginal peoples in mental health care are being/were told and “heard”. This paper is an attempt to use poetry as a therapeutic and storytelling strategy to highlight the difference between hearing and listening, and how that difference relates to the word Recovery as a paradigm shift and story of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative research paper discusses the importance of experiential learning in the creative writing process, the cognitive processing of difficult emotions that can result from writing creatively in both the first and third person, and the implications of this in therapeutic settings. It looks at the ways experiential learning can come not just first-hand from life experience, but also through interviewing others about their experiences, and the ways Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis can then be used to interpret the material and act as a stepping stone between fact and fiction. The study is based on the writer's 20-year databank of journalistic interviews, which represents hundreds of single case studies, and also on her experience of writing four published novels. It examines the significance of the overlap between creativity, psychology, and journalism, and the therapeutic implications of that overlap for journalists, authors, and psychologists and their patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dating back to the ancient Greek poets and artists, and sustained through later European art and literature, the winged horse Pegasus is linked with heroic deeds and with poetry and creativity through his association with the Muses. The reception of Pegasus since antiquity divides into two main strands: his role in the Perseus and Bellerophon myths, connecting the winged horse with heroic deeds and battles with monsters; and an allegorical-symbolical interpretation, based on Pegasus' association with the fountain of the Muses. This article traces the literary sources of Pegasus, providing English translations of the relevant ancient Greek and Latin texts, and sampling early modern and modern Italian, German, and English works. Demonstrating the development of the heroic and the allegorical-symbolical avenues of interpretation, the paper also summarizes the satirical aspect of Pegasus. Full attention to all these aspects reinforces the excellence of Pegasus as a symbol of poetry therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a unique application of Jungian interpretation on folktales in order to understand the mother prototype in cultures. The cultural context of motherhood and maternal role is crucial to a therapist understanding of the culture backgrounds of patients in cross-culture therapy. The mother figure is the focal point of this interpretive reading and allows the reader to view the mother as culture complex. As an example of applying this interpretation, the research analyzes 10 Russian folktales, including an analysis of archetypes, and an analysis of 4 aspects that represent the mother: the feminine aspect portrayed by the female folktale characters; the introvert masculine aspect portrayed by the masculine characters; the mother's elementary aspect that nurtures the child; and the transformative aspect that drives the child to change. The latter two are represented by interactions between characters. Insights derived from this research contribute to culturally sensitive therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the level of poetry appreciation that can be achieved by university students with intellectual disabilities. Indeed, there are limited studies that provide knowledge of poetry pedagogy for teachers of this group of individuals. Going some way to address the paucity of research in this area, this paper advances an approach to poetry pedagogy which is built on three tenets: (1) Teacher and positioning; (2) Student and the poetic voice, and (3) Language, metalanguage and poetry writing. It is argued that these tenets have the potential to become a powerful tool for people with intellectual disabilities to explore their self and social identity, and a medium to question and challenge the ideational world that these individuals are situated in. For teachers, utilising this poetry pedagogy encourages a critical reflexive practice which has the potential to enhance the relationship between teachers' positions and identities and the way this is enacted in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how reading and writing processes contribute to therapist supervision as a means of working through impasse situations and facilitating the development of the therapeutic self. Texts read and written during supervision will mediate resistance, blocked narratives and containment or attention issues, as well as difficulties in change and processing developments during therapy. Texts will serve as a platform to contain the unconscious and conscious realms and shall contain the professional intrapersonal processing of the supervisee, as well as therapist-patient transference and countertransference relations and supervision relations. For this purpose, three variations of supervision shall be presented, demonstrating the transformative power of reading and writing processes for supervision in impasse situations: (1) reading and writing the therapeutic hour's summaries as a means to gain a re-observation; (2) the text's contribution in removing the patient's identity barriers; (3) the text as a release container to expose the iceberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of empty space in haiku and its potential in education is the focus of this paper. The author examines the emptiness embodied in the practice of writing haiku through examples of Basho's life and haiku, and her own experience as a teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we shall characterize two types of literary readings, the monological and the dialogical, based on the reading responses of female clinical therapists who were asked to relate to the plot of David Grossman's novella, Her Body Knows, with its plot and the interpersonal relationships shared by its literary figures. Reading the novella, which features at its core the rescue fantasy and repair in interpersonal relations, allows us to address personal and professional issues, while evoking therapeutic insights concerning psychotherapy and the perception of the therapist's role. The insights broached by our paper can be applied to the importance of therapists' encounters with literature in encouraging therapists' dialogue to develop tolerance to human states, as a fertile, nourishing space for professional training and development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper includes research into the pervasiveness and dangerousness of intimate partner violence and the ways that poetry therapy can be used to help victims gain perspective on their situation. According to the World Health Organization, over 30 percent of women worldwide have experienced violence at the hands of a partner. The author's personal experience with poetry therapy in leaving an abusive relationship of 13 years is used as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings of the first study to analyse the uses and sufficiency of writing therapy in the context of pregnancy sickness. Ten women, previously hospitalised due to Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a chronic pregnancy related illness, participated in this research study. Participants completed four expressive writing tasks, at home, over a 2-week period, followed by a semi-structured, qualitative telephone interview. The study thematically analysed participants' experiences of engagement with the writing process, including writing for self rather than audience, and how writing compared to talking about their illness experience. Findings are consistent with the existing research literature on the therapeutic value of reflective writing and contribute new knowledge regarding women's first-person experiences of this in a new population. Data were analysed through a psychotherapeutic lens by a researcher who lived with HG throughout both of her own pregnancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on an examination of the effectiveness of a 1-h workshop designed to teach poetry as a coping tool for children and adolescents in crisis and psychiatric facilities. This study was designed to measure poetry self-efficacy, belief in the usefulness of poetry as a coping tool, and changes in feelings of isolation and loneliness. Overall, the results of this study suggest adolescents and children in crisis centers and inpatient units may both enjoy and benefit from a single exposure to poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a retrospective look, from a distance of thirty-five years, at the lasting influence of a poetry therapy class on one of its participants. It chronicles how words written by a classmate, never seen or heard from after the class dispersed, had a lasting influence on her life. It builds on a theory borrowed from science, the entanglement theory, which suggests that particles in the sub-atomic realm, once connected remain forever in contact with each other. Drawing from the framework of the class, it speculates on extrapolating the physical theory of entanglement to a theory of human connections. It suggests underlying patterns in which lives fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, patterns so complex as to be beyond human understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma needs containment and recognition in order to be handled, and this project enabled the soldier to do both through the use of writing and poetry. This paper is based on the qualitative findings of an 18-month long poetry therapy group conducted in a veteran's center, and follows the progress of the veterans as they learned to use writing and poetry to focus on the present and reconnect to a broad spectrum of emotions they had been trained to suppress. The paper describes the theory behind the exercises and their impact on the veterans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of the occurrence, use, and value of concepts from the Jungian alchemical metaphor to the practice of clinical or casework supervision is the focus of this paper. An overview of the alchemical metaphor as employed in Jungian analytical psychology is presented. In addition to an exploration of researched papers where alchemy is applied to the theory of therapy supervision; the role of the imagination in supervision, which was an initial area of interest for the author, is promoted. This is attempted through exploring the language of alchemy, and the alchemy of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is suggesting a bibliotherapeutic reading of the virtual texts of Israeli blogger moms viaAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland, introducing the reader to the range of literary representations of the mother in Lewis Carroll’s well-known work and the real mother as a patient in the clinical context. Here, the maternal text emerges as a transitional object that allows mothers to cope with the existential paradoxes of their daily lives and experience their lives as meaningful, suggesting that the creative maternal experience is a transitional experience. Like Alice, the playing mothers’ developmental transition is in the form of a shift from daily life into the realm of fantasy and virtual fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the experiences of a graduate student and a professor who engaged in a thought exercise about found poetry. Through the contemplation of nine found poems that were extracted from the professor’s doctoral research on abortion providers, they consider how found poetry can be read, interpreted, and experienced. The potential role of found poetry for social work research and practice is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the relations between tonal and atonal regions of the psychic space as being responsible for the relations between movement and stasis. Drawing on a musical terminology, I describe the constant tension between a harmonious pole of thinking and an idiosyncratic one, both in psychoanalytic meta-reflection as well as in the clinical realm, presenting thereby bibliotherapy, poetry therapy, and the poetic zones of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as the therapeutic forces which “pull” toward the link to atonal psychic areas, enabling in that way the ongoing integration of the homely and un-homely, the syntax and the anti-syntax of the psychic space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we report on a project to take poetry into a nursing home, building on the widely-held belief in the benefits of poetry in therapeutic settings. This intervention involved us reading poetry aloud in a nursing home and reflecting on how residents reacted to these texts. Our findings suggest that talking about the poetry allowed members of this community to self-reflect and tell narratives that were important to them. Sometimes the poem served as a catalyst, encouraging the disclosure of poignant stories, while at other times the poems seemed incidental to the stories told by the group. Our subsequent reflections also suggested to us that there were several areas that needed further exploration. The poems are not delivered straight to the listener with no mediation; rather, the poems and the discussion afterwards are mediated by both the general expectations and particular interventions of the audience and the facilitators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper through a discussion of the therapeutic value of autobiographical narratives of disease seeks to emphasize the importance of Lance Armstrong’s autobiography, showing how someone after once having physically and emotionally devastated by a disease like cancer, and bearing the stigma of socio-cultural myths and constructions of the disease can come out triumphant and attain regeneration through an indomitable will to survive and live. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper, representing part of a recent anthropology project about non-medical therapies used by low-income rural residents, describes poetry and song-writing used as a therapeutic medium by members of a creative sharing circle, in the township of Sephirah, in Victoria, Australia. ‘Sephirah’, a pseudonym of Hebrew origin, holds significant meaning and symbolism relevant to participants’ beliefs. Rural health consumers, with limited healthcare access, frequently resort to complementary and alternative medicine, espousing holistic, nature-focused spiritual values. Poetry group members contrived to use literary-focused performances in lieu of a health support group, and experienced healing, both inherent in and as a direct effect of sharing and performing songs and poetry. Data collection was enriched through the author’s participant observation in the group, requiring emotional investment and critical awareness. Foremost themes, highlighted in extracts from participants’ original works, were: (i) mothering, (ii) desire to love and be loved, and (iii) dealing with grief and loss. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to present the outcomes of integrating student creative projects in social work research methods classes as a strategy to increase student engagement. Researchers propose that integration of literary arts into courses that students sometimes find daunting will provide an alternative to traditional modes of education, thus enhancing opportunities for student learning. Results from a qualitative classroom study will be presented to show student interpretation of their own creative projects and student evaluations of the assignment. Implications for social work education will be offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the possibilities afforded by the availability of high-quality Open Educational Resources (OERs) for traditional Humanities subjects such as English. The OERs provided a rich multimedia environment that enabled students to explore a range of selected poems. This paper reports on the design, development and usability testing of OERs for the teaching of poetry at Junior Certificate level in Irish post-primary schools. The potential impact of such OERs is also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negritude poetry is often considered the bastion of African literary engagement with the Europe and ultimate summation of the determination of people of the black race to confront racism. But if Negritude as a cultural movement serves as an enduring watershed in the decolonization process of the black Africa and the Caribbean, Negritude poetry on the other hand is incontrovertibly grounded in the committed promotion through writing of the avowed philosophy engraved in the movement's criticism of racial discrimination against Africans and blacks in the diaspora, by the white supremacist Europeans. Indisputably, Negritude essentially celebrates the African cultural renaissance in music, folklore and orature. Despite Senghor's magisterial father figure portraiture and his occupation of a dignified position in the halo chamber of fame in African literature, his writing has been largely described by the critics as conciliatory due to his remarkable volte-face in his latter poetry. An affirmation of this charge has been exemplified in Africanite and metissage culturel. However, David Diop has consistently cut the image of enfant terrible of the Negritude poetry and his poetics have been profoundly iconoclastic. Remarkably, Senghor and Birago Diop's poetry have been strikingly portrayed as confrontational and their poetics belligerent, Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas and David Diop's poetry exuberantly amplify militancy and radicalism mediated by the combative bravura. The paper seeks to evaluate how the selected Negritude poets have eloquently appropriated protest in the language of their poetry, in order to seek restoration of the battered African dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poetry creates new ways of knowing and is increasingly being used in qualitative research. Although few researcher-poets integrate poetry as the primary method for their inquiry, many researchers use poetry to synthesise and re-present data. In this paper, I establish the importance of reflexivity and use poetry to re-present my experience of becoming a researcher. Drawing upon my experience as a doctoral researcher, I explore my fear of “non-production”, my relationship with the Ph.D., transitions and relationships following fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, and my fear of being an academic imposter. As a researcher using the art of poetry, I have expanded my understanding of research and the researcher role. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]