9780241611289

P EN GUIN P RES S T H E P OET RY P H ARM AC Y FOREVER

T H E P oe t ry Ph a r m ac y for e v er

The right words at the right moment can be priceless. Bringing the hugely beloved Poetry Pharmacy trilogy to completion, these poetic prescriptions and wise words of advice offer comfort and joy for all. Here are pages to return to time and again – a place for calm contemplation, and that vital recognition: although the world may change, others have felt as I now feel.

Date: 10 Aug 2023 Designer: Freelance Prod. Controller: Sandra Pub. Date: TBC ISBN: 9780241611289

THE POETRY

S P IN E WID T H :1 7 .5

• Estimated • Confirmed

PHAR MAC Y —FOREVER—

FORM AT

202mm x 126mm

P RIN T

1 X stickers

FIN IS H ES

P R A I S E F O R T H E P OE T RY PH A R M AC Y

HELENA BONHA M CARTER

‘I keep my copy with the brandy and aspirin’

I S B N 978-0-241-61128-9

9

780241 611289

PoetryPharmacy3_Artwork_05.indd 1,3

90000

£14.99

JEANETTE WINTERSON

W illi a m Siegh a rt

‘A gem of a book ... William Sieghart is a genius’

MM

Fuchsia Brillianta Cloth Cream foil

NEW PRESCRIPTIONS

TO SOOTHE, REVIVE AND INSPIRE

P ROOFIN G M ET H OD

proofs • Wet only • Digital No further proof required •

WILLIAM SIEGHART PA R T I C U L A R B O O K S

COMP

10/08/2023 15:26

The Poetry Pharmacy Forever

William Sieghart has had a long career in publishing and the arts. He established the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 1992 and founded National Poetry Day in 1994. He was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to public libraries.

His Poetry Pharmacy began touring in 2014; since then, and particularly since the publications of the hugely beloved The Poetry Pharmacy (2017) and The Poetry Pharmacy Returns (2019), he has prescribed thousands of poems up and down the UK over hundreds of hours of ​­in-​­person consultations.

WILLIAM SIEGHART

The Poetry Pharmacy Forever New Prescriptions to Soothe, Revive and Inspire

an imprint of

PARTICULAR BOOKS UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Particular Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published by Particular Books 2023 001 Editorial material and selection copyright © William Sieghart, 2023 The Acknowledgements on pp. ​­145–8 constitute an extension of this copyright page The moral rights of the authors and editor have been asserted Set in 9.25/14pt Baskerville 10 Pro Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. The authorized representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978–0–241–61128–9

www.greenpenguin.co.uk Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

To Daniel Wolf In memoriam

Contents Introduction

xv

The History of the Poetry Pharmacy How to Read a Poem

xix

xxiii

Coming Together Purposelessness 2 – 3 Late Fragment, by Raymond Carver

Need for Connection

4–5

Small Kindnesses, by Danusha Laméris

Insularity

6–7

The Life that I Have, by Leo Marks

Rushing Love

8–9

Down by the Salley Gardens, by W. B. Yeats

Taking Love Too Seriously

10 – 11

It’s Only Love, by Sheenagh Pugh

Growing Older in Love

12 – 14

Untitled, by Bee Rawlinson

Lack of Passion

16 – 17

Saturday Morning, by Hugo Williams

vii

General Restlessness 18 – 19 Being Boring, by Wendy Cope

Need for Communication

20 – 21

Repression, by Dorothy Nimmo

Moving Apart Claustrophobia in Relationships

24 – 25

Coat, by Vicki Feaver

Breaking Another’s Heart

26 – 27

A Very Short Song, by Dorothy Parker

Siege Mentality

28 – 29

from Home, by Warsan Shire

Need for Community

30 – 31

Come, Come, Whoever You Are, by Rumi

Incompleteness without Romance

32 – 33

Symptom Recital, by Dorothy Parker

Learning to Say No

34 – 35

No, Thanks, by Dennis O’Driscoll

Loneliness 36 – 37 Today My Horoscope Read, by Warsan Shire

viii

Grief and Its Guises Unresolved Grief 40 – 42 The Embrace, by Mark Doty

Grieving Differently 44 – 45 Long Distance II, by Tony Harrison

Familial Loss

46 – 48

Death is Nothing at All, by Henry Scott Holland

Sudden Loss

50 – 51

The White Gate, by Helen Farish

Terminal Illness 52 – 53 ‘My life’s stem was cut’, by Helen Dunmore

Despair

54 – 55

The Thing Is, by Ellen Bass

Fear of Ageing 56 – 57 from East Coker, by T. S. Eliot

Rage at the World

58 – 59

High Country Weather, by James K. Baxter

Weathering Sorrow

60 – 61

The Uses of Sorrow, by Mary Oliver

ix

Checking Out and Tuning In Stagnancy in Motion

64 – 65

Horizon, by Rudy Francisco

Need for Change

66 – 67

Yesterday I Was Clever, by Rumi

Slowing Down 68 – 69 Scintillate, by Roger McGough

​­Time-​­wasting

70 – 71

from On Living, by Nâzım Hikmet

Fear of Pain

72 – 73

from Poem for My Daughter, by Teddy Macker

Need for Bravery

74 – 75

Let Me not Pray, by Rabindranath Tagore

Need to Take Control

76 – 77

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

Choosing a Life

78 – 79

Commencement Address, by Linda Pastan

Need for Healing

80 – 81

‘This is the time to be slow’, by John O’Donohue

​­Self-​­preoccupation

82 – 83

Everyone is God Speaking, by Hafez

x

News Addiction

84 – 85

Survivor, by Roger McGough

​­World-​­weariness

86 – 87

Instructions for Living a Life, by Mary Oliver

Finding Light Dissatisfaction with Success

90 – 91

What sort of life could satisfy the heart, by Simonides

Feeling Past One’s Best 92 – 93 Gather, by Rose McLarney

Fear of Choice

94 – 95

Choice, by Lynn Ungar

Need for Encouragement 96 – 97 It Couldn’t Be Done, by Edgar Albert Guest

Environmental Despair

98 – 99

Everything Changes, by Cicely Herbert

Hopelessness

100 – 101

‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers, by Emily Dickinson

Existential Dread

102 – 103

Thank You, by Ross Gay

Pessimism

104 – 105

Yes, by William Stafford xi

Need for Spiritual Satisfaction

106 – 107

Hyacinths to Feed the Soul, by James Terry White

​­Second-​­guessing Happiness 108 – 109 So Much Happiness, by Naomi Shihab Nye

Great Escapes Overcome by Sorrow

112 – 113

Island, by Langston Hughes

Need for Calm

114 – 115

The Undertaking, by Louise Glück

Disconnection from Inner Child

116 – 117

maggie and milly and molly and may, by E. E. Cummings

​­Over-​­indulgence 118 – 119 Feast, by Edna St Vincent Millay

Longing for Certainty

120 – 121

Entirely, by Louis MacNeice

Perfectionism

122 – 124

Perfection, Perfection, by Fr Kilian McDonnell

Changing for Others

126 – 127

Indian Summer, by Dorothy Parker

Need for Adventure

128 – 129

The Call, by Charlotte Mew xii

Frustrated Ambition

130 – 131

from Mental Health, by Yrsa ​­Daley-​­Ward

Need for Escape

132 – 133

The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by W. B. Yeats Index of First Lines

137

Index of Conditions

139

Acknowledgements 145

xiii

Introduction In my introduction to the second volume of this pharmacy, I spoke of poetry’s power as a spiritual link in isolating times.

Little did I know, then, quite how isolating the times were soon to become. In the short handful of years since I wrote those words, the world has been paused and restarted, undone and remade. Isolation has been given a new significance, and the power of poetry to connect us has been tested in ways I never would have imagined.

As I write this we are all, I think, still reeling from the impact of the ​­COVID-​­19 pandemic. Indeed, I feel confident in saying that as you read this, a year or even a decade from now, you too will still be carrying the psychological mark of those extraordinarily intense first months. Although most of us may now be settled and relatively safe in our ‘new normal’, there can be no underestimating the collective trauma of watching all our certainties dissolve, the loss of social connections and support structures, the fear of an unknown disease, ​­and – ​for ​­many – ​the death of loved ones on top of all of this. We are a society in greater need of comfort and compassion than ever.

During those first lockdowns, I was receiving daily emails from those who were struggling to cope with their new reality.

People requested poems to salve their isolation, their grief and their uncertainty about the future. But most movingly of all, I heard from the health workers working in First World War conditions while we were locked up at home. They told me of their sense that they were living in a dystopian world entirely removed from the everyday lives of the rest of us. They went to wards full of death, every day, while we learned to bake bread and bashed our pans once a week. Despite all their training in dealing with xv

the horrors that accompany the end of life, even they were unequipped to deal with the relentless devastation they were witnessing.

One incredibly moving message from a GP sticks with me. She had finally been released from her intense Covid rotation and returned to normal duties. And yet the world she discovered was far from normal. When she got back to her surgery, she found that two hundred of her regular patients had died since she had gone. Two hundred. ‘How do I contend with this?’ she asked me.

I am a poetry pharmacist, and so of course what I had to offer was poetry. And as the world became smaller and darker for so many of us, it was incredible to see the radiant and l​­ ife-​­enlarging power that poetry took on. People were trapped in their homes, often alone or ​­ – ​maybe ​­worse – ​feeling alone around those they loved the most. They lacked the words for the emotions they were feeling: the horror that seemed beyond expressing, the hope that felt too delicate to pin down. And so, they turned to others to say these things for them. The internet thrummed with poems shared, poems of comfort and recognition, old words that captured new circumstances with a burning precision.

It was during the first lockdown that I was approached by Emilia Clarke, of Game of Thrones fame. She had the wonderful idea of recruiting a fleet of talented actors to read poems from my pharmacy on Instagram, with my prescriptions written beneath. The reception from the public shocked all of us, and the clips took on a life of their own. By the end of the project we had donated thousands in royalties from the excess sales to her charity. Watching the poems I had once prescribed ​­one-​­on-​ ­one in ​­run-​­down libraries and literary festivals gain their own momentum, travelling across social media quite independently of me, and bringing comfort and joy to millions in the most hopeless of ​­times – ​I can barely begin to describe how moving it was. The power of poetry, and of the public who shared it, left me awestruck. xvi