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A Look Back and a Path Forward: Poetry's Healing Power during the Pandemic

David haosen xiang.

1 Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115 United States

Alisha Moon Yi

2 Harvard College, Cambridge, MA USA

This discussion seeks to highlight the ability of poetry to combat loneliness, a growing public health problem with significant negative health outcomes that potentially impact millions of Americans. We argue that poetry can play a very relevant role and have an impact in medicine. Through a brief literature review of previous studies on poetry in medicine, we demonstrate that poetry can not only combat loneliness but can also play important roles in helping patients, physicians, and other healthcare professionals/providers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe now is the perfect opportunity to utilize poetry because the benefits can be experienced even in solitude, which is why this is such a timely and pertinent issue today.

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is also a matter of opportunity.” -- Hippocrates

Introduction

During this pandemic, the dangers of loneliness and social isolation cannot be ignored. Loneliness is associated with a 26% increase in risk of premature mortality, can have a negative impact on cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems, and affects about a third of people in most industrialized countries (Cacioppo and Cacioppo 2018 ). Reducing social interactions is a well-documented risk factor for several mental disorders including schizophrenia and major depression, as well as generating increased feelings of fear and anxiety (Miller 2011 ). Moreover, with acute stress generated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reported symptoms of psychological stress, including loneliness, among American adults have increased since 2018 (McGinty et al. 2020 ).

With the disruption of regular networks of trusted individuals and groups, that means we must confront these pertinent mental health issues ourselves. Yet without meaningful methods or practical tools to do so, many have nowhere to turn to, and no solution seems to be in sight. Lack of access to mental health resources is exacerbated by this pandemic, and improving mental health services is needed (Moreno et al. 2020 ). After all, loneliness is becoming an incredibly pressing public health problem, and must be addressed with proper engagement and full support from the medical community.

In this paper, we hope to show that poetry can be a powerful, practical, and accessible tool to combat loneliness directly, and that poetry can provide a new avenue for healing. Since the nineteenth century, poetry has been used formally and informally for healing purposes in the United States, and now, in our current day, we believe the opportunity for poetry’s significance and applications to be recognized is crucial (Mazza and Hayton 2013 ). During this COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity for poetry to provide healing can be immediately effective and applied widely.

Poetry in medicine

Poetry, as a healing tool applicable and accessible to anyone, can have a concrete impact in all areas of medicine, specifically in providing innovative methods for healing to occur individually and holistically.

Several scientific studies and reviews have previously demonstrated that poetry has a beneficial impact on patients in terms of managing pain, coping with stressors, and improving personal well-being (Lepore and Smyth 2002 ). Moreover, listening, writing, and reading poetry is associated with a reported improvement in pain following a surgical procedure and improves a patient's ability to deal with chronic illness (Arruda, Garcia, and Garcia 2016 ; Naidu and Shabangu 2015 ; Eum and Yim 2015 ; Hovey, Khayat, and Feig 2018 ). Additionally, poetry provides patients with further methods of coping with unexpected or stress-inducing situations. A previous study demonstrated that reading and writing poetry temporarily increases working memory capacity, which can increase an individual’s ability to proactively cope with stressful events. Moreover, this improvement in working memory is associated with greater recall of medication instructions and scheduled health appointments, which improves health outcomes (Klein 2002 ).

In directly addressing mental health, poetry has been shown to have positive short and long-term mood changes as well as behavioral effects in school and work performance (Lepore 1997 ). Expressive writing can decrease physiological stress indicators such as lower muscle tension, reduce perspiration level, and lower blood pressure and heart rate levels (Smyth et al. 1999 ). Furthermore, the introspective writing that poetry fosters also offers patients an opportunity to reflect on their lives, enabling them to accept their situation with poise and peace (Heimes 2011 ). This aspect of poetry is often highlighted in palliative care, as there has been a growing recognition within the field to recognize how poetry can develop person-centered organizations, better train health professionals, and support a patient’s overall well-being (Davies 2018 ; Coulehan and Clary 2005 ). Previous literature review on poetry therapy for patients in palliative and end-of-life care show that poetry facilitates meaningful shared experiences and significantly improves relationships between healthcare providers and patients (Gilmour, Riccobono, and Haraldsdottir 2019 ).

In health professions education, specifically, in nursing, poetry has been frequently employed as a teaching platform to teach values such as empathy, to develop greater emotional awareness, to reduce anxiety and stress, and to assess communication skills (Mood 2018 ; Jack 2015 ). The benefits that poetry can have in fostering empathy and greater self-awareness for those in the nursing profession have been well-documented and provide a different approach that can greatly enhance knowledge of complex and ambiguous situations often experienced in nursing practice (Clancy and Jack 2016 ).

For the caregiver, physician, or healthcare professional, poetry can provide a different lens with which to view the field of medicine. Poetry offers an innovative approach to further humanizing medicine through promoting empathy, emotional sensitivity, cultivating a compassionate presence, and ultimately, providing an accessible platform to acquire and develop skills that are difficult to otherwise teach. Furthermore, these are traits crucial in healing and can significantly increase one’s own effectiveness, further helping and facilitating the patient experience.

For patients, poetry provides a space to vent, to reflect, and to come to terms with their respective situation. It provides an organizational structure with which to tackle new perceptions and deal with negative thoughts. Healing can take place within individuals, at a pace determined by them. Whether it is coping with pain, dealing with stressful situations, or coming to terms with uncertainty, poetry can benefit a patient’s well-being, confidence, emotional stability, and quality of life (Heimes 2011 ). Poetry restores agency, allowing one’s voice to be heard and represented the way he or she wishes it to be. Moreover, when writing, the poems that patients generate can serve as valuable repositories of past knowledge and experience and can comfort relatives or affected parties, which oftentimes strengthens relations with loved ones. Poetry has immediate benefits for not just the individual but also for the immediate family members, and the larger community as a whole.

The benefits of poetry in medicine and public health today

One of the key tools to combat loneliness is a strong social relationship with others. A genuine connection with others can effectively help those who are suffering from loneliness. As a matter of fact, the presence of strong social relationships is associated with a 50% increased likelihood of survival, and surprisingly, both actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton 2010 ). A 2015 study found no differences in increased likelihood of mortality between measures of objective and subjective social isolation, suggesting that both perceived and actual social isolation can have similar detrimental effects on individuals (Holt-Lunstad et al. 2015 ).

That is where the three aspects of poetry—reading, writing, and sharing—become so incredibly relevant and applicable. To paraphrase poet Paul Celan, a poem is like a handshake: it creates bonds between people. Poetry, and the creative introspection it fosters, can help individuals feel more connected to themselves, to those around them, and to the external world as a whole. Even when practiced in isolation, as many individuals currently are during this pandemic, poetry can increase self and interpersonal awareness, encourage the ownership of voicing your own ideas and emotions, and increase one’s ability to reflect upon significant memories or current-day situations. This can directly address both actual and perceived social isolation and can be a powerful step in helping individuals combat loneliness.

When reading poetry, one is able to challenge his or her own perspectives, to become more tolerant of different points of view, and to appreciate the nuances of various opinions. Reading poetry can also help individuals feel connected to others; oftentimes, reading a poem can remind the individual of a similar experience or emotion, creating a sense of belonging. Poems have real emotional power and serve as a testament to all of us that we are never alone, that amongst these collective voices we can find those that ring at the same frequency as ours (Wassiliwizky et al. 2017 ). Reading poetry can provide solace and great hope to us, as it reaffirms our place in the world and, in those moments when we come across a poem or certain lines that strongly resonate with us, it is as if we are jolted with electricity at the sheer joy of knowing we can share a bond with someone who we may have never met.

In writing poetry, the mind is forced to slow down and to revisit memories, often bringing to life past emotions and experiences. The process itself is a dynamic one in which writers often learn many new things about themselves that they did not previously think about. Writing poetry also allows one to strengthen an individual’s sense of identity and voice. Poems function as fragments of ourselves, and when writing, we are able to represent ourselves the way we want to be represented, in the most honest and effective light. Poetry allows us to bear witness to who we are and to put into words what often cannot be expressed easily otherwise. Poetry creates avenues for self-expression that cannot be felt through other means of communication. This in itself can be a healing and restorative process, a self-guided therapy that allows us to strengthen our mental health and connection to ourselves, and to those around us.

And when provided a space to share poetry with others, as one is listening to others’ lived experiences and emotions, social bonds can be formed, and safe spaces can be generated where vulnerability and tolerance are actively encouraged. In sharing favorite lines or discussing experiences and emotions with strangers, poetry can bring people together, from all backgrounds, with subtle ease. Unexpected commonalities are frequently found, which spur conversation and a further willingness to create new social relationships. Poetry can create genuine community and an atmosphere of welcome and warmth.

We experienced this firsthand through the Hope Storytelling Project, a series of virtual poetry workshops that we co-led and taught through our local library systems in Cambridge and Las Vegas. We had developed our program with discussion and connection in mind, as we wanted both to teach poetry and to allow our participants to form meaningful social relationships with each other. Quickly, we realized that the sense of community we were able to generate through poetry was incredibly valuable. Over the course of the summer, we consistently had participants remark on the sense of belonging and community that the workshops provided, and how encouraged they were to speak and share their hopes and fears, their worries and joys, and to feel a real connection to others, while learning and immersing themselves in poetry. They shared how the space absorbed them in heartfelt sharing, how the workshops felt like a gentle cleansing, how people’s willingness to share was truly touching, and how poetry enabled them to continue their journey of self-discovery and healing.

Our experiences with teaching and leading these poetry workshops reaffirmed our belief that poetry can serve as an effective antidote to loneliness and the health complications that social isolation brings. During this pandemic, this project provides a model for coping with the uncertainty and chaos of life: as we were reminded of each other's stories, we were able to find similarities in seemingly different lives, finding connection through those similarities. In the moments of interaction and dialogue with each other, we saw genuine relationships being cultivated.

Most importantly, the accessible nature of poetry makes it an incredibly relevant and applicable tool, especially now, when genuine connections are a scarce commodity. Poetry is particularly powerful because it is so easily accessible, as its benefits can be experienced from the comfort of one’s own home. Simply by reading a poem once a week, sharing a poem with a friend, or spending five to ten minutes to free write about a favorite memory, a current idea, a worry or hope, can all be effective first steps in experiencing the benefits of poetry. It is imperative that we bring such experiences into more communities, where other methods and tactics to combat loneliness may not be as accessible. The opportunity is now to recognize the healing potential of poetry.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

David Haosen Xiang and Alisha Moon Yi contributed equally to this article.

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#PoemResearch: Notes on Researching as a Poet

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Late in Leaving the Atocha Station , Ben Lerner’ s novel about a young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, we receive this capsule description of the research project our narrator has successfully evaded and talked around:

Maybe if I remained I would pursue the project described so many months ago in my application, composing a long and research-driven poem, whatever that might mean, about the literary responses to the Civil War, exploring what such a moment could teach us about ‘literature now.’ My Spanish would rapidly improve; I would not read Ashbery or Garnett or anything else in English, but hurl myself headlong at the Spanish canon; I would become the poet I pretended to be and realize my project. I would buy a phone and consummate my relationship with Teresa.

Through his fictional proxy Adam Gordon, Lerner gives us an experience of what it feels like to be on prestigious fellowship—if you were, say, a talented young poet with an almost crippling self-awareness of the privileges afforded by race, class, and gender, but not so crippling as to take the fellowship, then novelize your paralysis. Your predicament is hilariously summed up by the phrase: “the experience of experience sponsored by my fellowship.” For you, experience never appears without modifiers or within square quotes. You worry the difference between research and experience , or perhaps their increasing interchangeability. Everything and everyone for you is potential research. You need critical distance from your life. The novelization of your unsentimental education will be conceptualized, divided, and ironized into “phases,” a technique that will allow you to acknowledge institutional formations, structure the novel around a research plot, and gesture toward questions about the ways in which modern poetry has been affected by scientific rationality. Like a good poet, you want to defend imagination against scientific rationality but the new language is not yet there for you. You fake it until you make it, and then when you have seemingly made it, you remain haunted by the ghost of the genuine—its possibility in art, in life, and in love. Reader, I have felt like Adam Gordon.

I’m a poet and not a researcher is something I said in a recent conversation with an editor. The editor thought I encompassed both. I balked at the idea, even though they meant it as a favorable observation, even though it was a perceptive recognition of my intellectual preoccupations, mixed materials, and impassioned methods. To my selective ears, researcher still sounded too much like a job description; it made me seem too industrious, purposeful, methodical, like I was working on a project. I’m a lazy poet, a lazier scholar. But the editor was a good reader of my poetry and helped me become a better reader of my own work, so I felt compelled to give the question more thought. I also knew that my repulsion was a defense mechanism. I associated research with the academic articles and monographs I was trained to produce as a graduate student in literature and those I am expected to produce as an English professor. Then and now, research is often the enjoyable and stimulating part; it is the academic writing part I find difficult and resistant to my creative impulses and intuition. My research has often found its way into my poetry. Many of my poems explore the memory, history, and legacy of the Vietnam War from my perspective as a second generation Vietnamese American, a subject I researched and wrote about for my dissertation. My scholarship and my creative writing share much of the same archives. It’s what I do with the research that differs. As a poet, that means making poems.

But how ought a poet research? What do poets talk about when we talk about research? Why is it that when poets talk about research it is either a joke or cloaked in an aurora of seriousness? Type the hashtag and see for yourself. You’ll find tweets by poets along the lines of What’s the Spanish word for hickey? What causes ringing in the ear? There is an entire Wikipedia page about dust. There are five distinctive morphological patterns of necrosis. Has anyone out there ever sucked the caviar from a live fish? (Salmon). If so, is it cold or warm? Thanks! Is research for poets another technique to create experience, like sex or intoxication?

Three poets who use research in reflexive and reflective ways:

Susan Howe shattered two images at once for me when I first encountered her work as an undergrad. The first image was that of the poet as untutored beatnik haunting dimly lit cafés. The second was the scholar as passionless brain in lab coat or tweed jacket. She gave me permission to be what Coleridge calls “a library cormorant.” In Howe’s hybrid work research creates situations that increase chance correspondences and triggers involuntary memories. Her recent book Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of the Archives , “a collaged swan song to the old ways” of researching, is a remarkable splicing of passion and intellect, re-collected documents and recollected experience:

Reading Paterson reminds me of walking barefoot across a small strip of common land near my house that’s littered with beach glass, broken oyster shells, razor clams and kelp. It’s called a beach, but no one swims there because even at high tide what is euphemistically referred to as “sand” quickly becomes marl, mud, and marsh grass. I feel the past vividly here—my own memories and the deeper past I like to explore in poems. As I look across Long Island Sound I can imagine it as an open ocean.

Reading and walking. The page and the landscape. In Howe’s work we find research and poetry so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, a formal experimentalism that trespasses the laws of genre. The bit of prose quoted above characteristically breaks off into a line of lyric flight—“O Thalassa, Thalassa! / the lash and hiss of water // The sea!” from William Carlos Williams’ s Paterson , Book III, The Library . In Howe’s title you hear echoes of Williams’s “to make a start / out of particulars” and think: No research but in things! For Howe, researching and writing are complementary, mutually affecting acts. Howe’s poet-researcher is a scout, a rover, a trespasser unsettling the wilderness of American literary history. Her poems and essays continually enact that anticipatory moment before discovery, of making connections, before anything is ever fixed into ideas. “If you are lucky,” she writes, “you may experience a moment before .” Reading her writing you experience the feeling of thinking: “Each collected object or manuscript is a pre-articulate empty theater where a thought may surprise itself at the instant of seeing. Where a thought may hear itself see.”

Natasha Trethewey’ s Native Guard is a rescue mission, like Howe’s work, to lift human voices out of historical silence. The title poem, based on the poet’s research into the history of the first black regiments during the Civil War, adopts the historical personae of the Louisiana Native Guards. I think of her “Native Guard” as Civil War reenactment pieces in sonnet form. Here is how the first sonnet, “November 1862,” opens the sequence:

Truth be told, I do not want to forget anything of my former life: the landscape’s song of bondage—dirge in the river’s throat where it churns into the Gulf, wind in trees choked with vines. I thought to carry with me want of freedom though I had been freed, remembrance not constant recollection.

Better perhaps to call “Native Guard” a monument of sonnets, as Trethewey uses her technical mastery of the formal verse to memorialize the black Union dead. In the corona (crown)—the last line of the initial sonnet acts as the first line of the next, and the ultimate sonnet’s final line repeats the first line of the initial sonnet—Trethewey finds a form to represent intersecting lines of history and the essential mixing that makes American identity. If “Native Guard” at times telegraphs its meaning and mission, the poems nonetheless seem willing to risk their more formulaic statements in order to achieve their re-visionary force as counter-narratives. “Some names shall deck the page of history / as it is written on stone. Some will not,” as it is written in the sonnet for “June 1863.” These poems do not engrave names (the speakers of the sonnets remain nameless), but instead they imagine past lives in the present tense. Other sonnets log the nightmare of history (“Last night, / I dreamt their eyes still open – dim, clouded / as the eyes of fish washed ashore, yet fixed - / staring back at me”). Trethewey describes her process of researching as a poet in an interview: “Then, before I could write I had to shove it all aside. I had to forget everything from the front of my brain, or at least in the foreground of my thinking, to forget all that I had read. But it was still there for me to access as I tried to write poems. It didn’t go away, but I had to get out of the mode of researcher and back into the mode of poet.” Trethewey has had to rely on her own intuition, invention, and imagination to conjure these voices from the past as if they had been passed down and collected in a research library. That is the melancholy of these sonnets as imagined documents. The sonnets stand in not only a proxy witness, but also as proxy documents for what has been lost or uncollected.

Robin Coste Lewis’ s Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems combines the experimentalism of Susan Howe with the formalism of Natasha Trethewey into a remarkable unity of autobiographical lyric, archival research, and literary activism. Structured as a triptych, the collection begins and ends with autobiographical lyric poems. The central panel is “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” an archival lyric made up entirely of the titles of artworks, from ancient times to the present, that feature or comment on the black female figure in Western art. The title poem is divided into eight sections, or “Catalogs,” a keyword that points back to the libraries, archives, and museums listed in the final “Notes” section of poem. In “Catalog 4: Medieval Colonial,” the list is one of numerous representational strategies:

The slaves escaping through the swamp, The Slave watching her pursuers in for e— Ground Black Woman walking in front of a Board Fence Background Plantation House and Outbuildings (or Slave Quarters). In a Grove of Trees Slave Woman wearing Runaway. Collar with Two Children, emaciated. Negro Man eating Dead. Horseflesh in the background. Negro Man strapped to a ladder, Being. Lashed Slave Woman seen

In Coste Lewis’s work a reader must constantly negotiate the meaning of what is being named and seen in a shifting “for e / Ground” that, as glimpsed in the above lines, becomes unsettled as words are pulled apart, isolated, and recombined, or punctuation errors and random capitalization disrupt the flow of reading. Here and elsewhere “Voyage” runs interference against the descriptive violence of representations of the black female figure in Western art—that is, descriptions of scenes of violence, but also descriptions that reveal ways of looking at, categorizing, ordering, and subjugating that rationalizes acts of violence. She uses the poetic catalogue against the colonial order of things, disordering the sight, sound, and sense of words. Researching for Coste Lewis—as it is for Howe and Trethewey—means researching back, a critical and creative strategy to interrogate the past and to write poetry that shifts our knowledge in the present.

Let’s remember what Frank O’Hara says in his poem “Having a Coke with You”: “what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them / when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank / or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully / as the horse / it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience / which is not going to go wasted on me / which is why I’m telling you about it.” Research desires touch. Research does no good without the kind of intimate knowledge we associate with lovers. And also what Guy Davenport discovers in his essay “Finding”: “I learned from a whole childhood of looking in fields how the purpose of things ought perhaps to remain invisible, no more than half known.” I want a research that follows the unsystematic, lackadaisical, and serendipitous zig-zag of walking through an oak savanna or reconstructed prairie. Finally, for now, I return to Susan Howe after Leaving the Atocha Station . Unlike Adam Gordon, Howe does not go in fear of experience. “In this room I experience enduring relation and connection between what was and what is,” she writes. Language remains the quarry, truth and beauty still the quest.

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Article Contents

Integrating science and poetry: lessons from the classroom, integrating science and poetry: benefits to conservation, building a science-poetry community, conclusions, acknowledgments, references cited.

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Poetry as a Creative Practice to Enhance Engagement and Learning in Conservation Science

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Stephanie R Januchowski-Hartley, Natalie Sopinka, Bethann G Merkle, Christina Lux, Anna Zivian, Patrick Goff, Samantha Oester, Poetry as a Creative Practice to Enhance Engagement and Learning in Conservation Science, BioScience , Volume 68, Issue 11, November 2018, Pages 905–911, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biy105

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Creativity is crucial to the capacity to do science well, to communicate it in compelling ways, and to enhance learning. Creativity can be both practiced and enhanced to strengthen conservation science professionals’ efforts to address global environmental challenges. We explore how poetry is one creative approach that can further conservation scientists’ engagement and learning. We draw on evidence from peer-reviewed literature to illustrate benefits of integrating science and poetry, and to ground our argument for the growth of a science-poetry community to help conservation scientists develop skills in creative practices as a component of professional development. We present examples from literature as well as two short poetry exercises for scientists to draw on when considering writing poetry, or deciding on forms of poetry to include, in their practice. Opportunity exists to grow science–poetry projects to further our understanding of what such initiatives can offer.

Current interdisciplinary dialogue generally perpetuates the ideology that scientists do science and artists do art. However, research and experience shows that scientists—and society more broadly—benefit from scientists creating works beyond their discipline (Swanson et al. 2008 , Opermanis et al. 2015 ). Broadly, creativity is defined as the production of original and useful ideas (for a broader discussion of creativity, see Stein 1953 , Barron 1955 , Runco and Jaeger 2012 ), and a variety of creative approaches, primarily from the arts, are increasingly appreciated in science education, communication, and practice (Jacobson et al. 2007 , Swanson et al. 2008 , Opermanis et al. 2015 ). For example, in Latvia, the Nature Concerthall brought science and arts (poetry, music, dance, photography, and videography) together as part of an information campaign to enhance public knowledge and awareness of nature conservation issues and resulted in both greater attendance and perceived greater knowledge of biodiversity issues by attendees (Opermanis et al. 2015 ). At the same time, the integration of creative practice in professional development opportunities for scientists is increasing; the last several years have seen multiple speakers at ecology and environmental conservation conferences (e.g., Society for Freshwater Science 2018, World Conference on Marine Biodiversity 2018, Resilience 2017) using different creative practices to highlight the role and value to ecology and environmental conservation of these practices. At the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity 2018, in Montréal, Canada, Linwood Pendleton's plenary, “Rethinking marine conservation science in three acts,” brought together poems, music, video, and dance to demonstrate how creative approaches can help to achieve and celebrate breakthroughs in marine conservation science (Pendleton 2018 ). Research focused on innovation in science also demonstrates that creativity is something we can practice and improve and that proficiency in a fine art, craft, or literary pursuit is a significant predictor of scientific productivity and innovation (Root-Bernstein 2003 ). Poetry, the focus of our article, is one creative practice that conservation scientists can use to enhance their capacity to innovate, to communicate their work in compelling ways, and to enhance their own learning, as well as that of others.

We recognize that there is a well-established body of environmental writing; the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment was established in 1992. We also recognize the growing area of environmental humanities research, which is strongly driven by those working in the arts and humanities. People working in environmental humanities are building interdisciplinary collaboration and research and reflecting on and critiquing actions and inactions when it comes to the use and management of our natural world (e.g., Magrane and Johnson 2016 ). Our article is directed at conservation scientists who have included or who are interested in creating poetry in their practice and are not poetry or literary specialists. The article is directed primarily at conservation science and scientists because of our own backgrounds and experiences, but we draw on examples from and our arguments are applicable to diverse fields. We do not see our article as separate from the ongoing work or research in environmental humanities but complementary to it and supportive of the idea that we require interdisciplinary lenses and creative approaches to action, critique, and reflection when it comes to environmental conservation and sustainability. Indeed, conservation scientists can benefit from engaging the writing and research of the environmental humanities; doing so would reinforce what we present below and would potentially encourage new and broader interdisciplinary research opportunities and directions. In the present article, we encourage a more explicit linking of conservation science and poetry by engaging scientists in poetic practice that can shape their work and believe this goes beyond wilderness literature, nature poems, and ecocriticism to consider how scientists can learn from creative practices in poetry to enhance their scientific practice.

Our focus in this article is on the unity of science and poetry, and we draw from evidence in science education, creativity, and problem-solving literature to demonstrate the potential benefits of science and poetry integration and ways in which conservation scientists can use poetry with their science as a component of professional development. To further illustrate, we reflect on our experiences and provide resources from our own ongoing science-poetry projects. To support a growing science-poetry community, we highlight new approaches of integrating science and poetry that may foster creativity and inspire others to find their own ways of building creative practice in their science.

Across diverse scientific fields, students have expressed a sense of enhanced engagement and enjoyment when poetry is integrated with their core subject. For example, Furlan and colleagues ( 2007 ) merged poetry writing and illustration in a college-level chemistry course. Their students noted that including poetry in the assignments not only made chemistry more enjoyable but offered a creative way to learn and communicate with others about chemistry. Similarly, Celly ( 2009 ) demonstrated the use of limericks for business management students to develop creative expression and reflect on their experiences as consumers to enhance topic engagement and deepen learning. In both examples, when poetry was integrated with core content, students were more engaged rather than being passive recipients of knowledge or information (Furlan et al. 2007 , Paiva et al. 2013 ). Enhanced engagement can result in a topic or problem being perceived as more enjoyable or accessible, because individuals can more effectively participate, both cognitively and emotionally (Lin et al. 2013 ).

Integrating poetry with science can also enhance opportunities for communication with others about a subject or problem. To illustrate, in his role as a middle school science teacher, Patrick Goff (article coauthor), searched ways for his students to exercise their creativity during a science module focused on human impacts to Earth's ecosystems. In his search, Goff found several initiatives led by conservation scientists who were using poetry to communicate about the environment and conservation on the social media platform Twitter. Inspired by the various conservation-poetry projects, Goff integrated haiku into his course. He considered poetry writing an opportunity for his students to showcase their creativity while learning about how humans affect Earth's ecosystems, to learn and communicate about these impacts, and to share their emotions about these impacts, beyond the boundaries of traditional pedagogical tools and approaches (e.g., reading from textbooks). In turn, Goff asked his students to select a topic related to human impacts on Earth's ecosystems, research it, and then write a haiku about it. He also shared some of the students’ haiku on Twitter, with their consent, to expand the potential audience reading the poems and to solicit potential feedback for the students. Goff's approach complements a framework suggested by Frye and colleagues ( 2011 ) to extend acrostic poetry into different content areas to bring ownership to students’ understanding. Goff found the succinct structure of haiku appealing from an instructional point of view; the short form demonstrated to his students the importance of selective word choice and the value of concentrated reflection on the topic. The students also expressed enjoyment in writing the haiku as an alternative to other modes of writing or assessment and in having their poems shared with others and receiving feedback.

The attitudes expressed by Goff's students about the integration of poetry in their science curriculum align with broader findings demonstrating the impact of topic engagement on learning (Paiva et al. 2013 ). Social and behavioral science studies have shown, for both children and adults, that activities that generate enjoyment or humor in an educational setting can stimulate learning, because students are more relaxed and less bound by rules (Lucardie 2014 ). An added benefit of short-form writing such as poetry is the potential to receive relatively rapid feedback when sharing ideas, which is important in learning environments (Hattie and Timperley 2007 ).

Poetry can allow scientists to engage, learn, and generate new ideas by enabling them to gain distance from an immediate problem or topic. By stepping away from a scientific problem and exploring poetry, scientists can foster creativity through what is commonly referred to, in creativity research, as an incubation period . This is a process whereby initial conscious thought is followed by a period during which one refrains from task-related conscious thought (Gilhooly et al. 2013 , Ritter and Dijksterhuis 2014 ). Incubation periods allow scientific ideas to percolate, and Aslan and colleagues ( 2014 ) discussed how incubation periods, or relaxed reflection, are an essential element of the creative process and highlight the importance of these periods for conservation scientists, who are likely to jettison periods of reflection in their working process. Importantly, incubation periods can illuminate hidden relationships, allowing for altered or changed views (Aslan et al. 2014 ), and drawing on activities dissimilar in nature to the target task, such as writing poetry, has been shown to have stronger effects on creative performance than an interpolated activity similar to the target task (Gilhooly et al. 2013 ). If creative performance and idea generation were the target of such incubation periods, conservation scientists could benefit from injecting an incubation period in their practice by writing on topics unrelated to the target task.

Integrating poetry as a component of daily writing could also assist conservation scientists with digesting and learning complex topics. Poetry, particularly shorter forms, such as haiku, can allow scientists to quickly capture and express new ideas. Pollack and Korol ( 2013 ) demonstrated the use of haiku as a means to convey neurobiological concepts succinctly by focusing on the most salient features of observed processes. Similarly, scientists can record creative impulses or intuitions related to a subject or problem without the constraints imposed by traditional scientific writing for journal publications. Breaking down thoughts on a topic in smaller, succinct thoughts or phrases could also help scientists to identify key themes or elements of a topic that need to be addressed or communicated clearly in their scientific writing or presentations.

Here I’m thinking of your found poems which are created from phrases pulled from your published scientific articles. In order to better understand these poems, your readers may be pushed to develop their understanding of scientific concepts. Even more interesting is that by creating something new out of your previous publications, you are demonstrating that knowledge is always in process, even for experts. That knowledge is not fixed, or unattainable, is, I think, a reassuring realization for nonspecialist readers, and it may even invite them to create their own interpretations of your poems and put their gleaned scientific understanding to work against environmental injustices.

Through poetry, scientists can also potentially relate scientific topics to day-to-day activities or events and can transcend disciplinary boundaries to reach new audiences who might otherwise not be aware of or engaged with conservation issues. At the same time, as was highlighted by Follett ( 2016 ), many readers of Anand's poetry will have to embrace the discomfort associated with treading into new ideas or concepts, and the same could be true for scientists who read poems (not associated with science per se) and do not necessarily understand the concept or point being expressed. Embracing such discomfort can be beneficial in preparing the mind to take risks that lead to greater innovation, not only in poetry, but also in science.

As El Niño builds, Pacific Warm Pool expands, ocean gains more heat

Haiku and image related to main topic in the IPCC State of the Climate in 2013 Executive Summary. Haiku and image by Gregory Johnson.

Ultimately, as conservation scientists, we aim for our work to be understood and used by the individuals seeking or encountering it. Although scientists might have some reservations about poetry as a method of inquiry, when viewed more broadly, the affective nature of poetry can be a mechanism for users of scientific content to experience deeper learning and connection about otherwise unfamiliar topics. Through word play, sound, formal constraints, and aesthetics, poetry affectively engages the reader while effectively allowing the exploration of complex or unfamiliar topics.

Oh poor, poor ratfish So chock full of parasites Anus copepod.

There is a need for a more inclusive definition of creativity in the science community. Scientists are (a) exploring the use of poetry to communicate about conservation and are using these efforts to (b) raise awareness about specific topics, programs, and initiatives. There is a growing (c) science-poetry community that is (d) encouraging conservation scientists to integrate poetry into their practice.

The interest and uptake of conservation-inspired poetry because of Project Conservation Haiku further highlights the potential for poetry to enhance scientific engagement and learning.

Through Project Conservation Haiku, the authors also built collaborations with other scientists who write poetry related to conservation. These collaborations led to the formation of SciBards (#SciBards on Twitter), a small community of conservation scientists who write, read, speak, and share poetry (figure 2c and d ). The SciBards community interacts primarily via social media, although individual and collaborative projects beyond social media have developed. For example, through the SciBards community, four of this article's coauthors, jointly facilitated a workshop at the 4th International Marine Conservation Congress to share their science-poetry experiences and bring poetry to conservation scientists. The “Using a pencilfish to write whales” workshop blended poetry, history, and science to address the relationship between science and poetry from several angles. At a conference in which science communication was a recurring theme, this workshop investigated a form not typically considered a science communication tool.

Cantonese delicacy Shark Fin Soup Significant global Problem.

Reflecting on our experiences in the “Using a pencilfish to write whales” workshop, we determined that one way to grow a science-poetry community is to share examples and perspectives, such as those that we have set out in this article, from our own as well as others’ experiences with poetry and science–poetry integration. To further inspire conservation scientists to integrate poetry in their daily practice, we present two short poetry exercises. The first poetry exercise is adapted from Maxine Hong Kingston's To Be the Poet (2002), based on a method for writing poems that was shared with her by Ted Sexauer, a member of Kingston's Veterans’ Writing Workshop. The original exercise was adapted and expanded by Christina Lux (article coauthor) and is well suited for scientists with little to no background in creative writing.

Step 1. Close your eyes and become aware of your emotions or bodily sensations. Now, open your eyes and begin jotting down notes about what you observe in your immediate environment. Close your eyes again, sit with the emotion or feeling that emerges in your body; write it down and again observe your environment, jotting down your immediate impressions. Repeat this step until you believe you are done.

Step 2. Look back at your notes. What images or descriptions are most striking to you, which ones do you feel you might want to keep? Circle them. Begin a new draft, pulling from those circled ideas. Is a concept emerging? Consider this draft your seed . You can leave the seed and come back to it, or you can continue to develop it.

Step 3. Your seed contains patterns that you can now sharpen, uncover, and highlight, depending on the message you want to convey in the poem or the concept that you want to explore. Is there a pattern emerging from the words you’ve laid out on the page? Do you notice a cadence or rhythm in your draft? If you see a pattern emerging, think about the form that will best reflect or deepen the sense of the images in your poem, and further develop the writing.

Step 4. Choose what to do with the poem: share it on social media, publish it in a journal or magazine, read it at a poetry reading, pair it with the work of an artist, or keep it for yourself.

The second poetry exercise is drawn from Oester ( 2016 ) and from several exercises that we have led, or read about (e.g., Wolters and Wijnen-Meijer 2012 ). This second exercise offers scientists a framework to develop a short poem about their research, a question, or broader ideas about science practice.

First, identify your muse: an objective, a topic, or an experience that you want to write about. Now think about and even write down what you are trying to accomplish. Write down everything you can think of about your muse, inspiration, experience, or story. Don’t edit, just write. Set down the writing and thoughts for at least an hour. Return to the writing, read it over, and begin to clarify the idea that you are trying to accomplish or convey. Develop line breaks in your writing to create a juxtaposition, to evoke sensation or drive a narrative forward. Edit as needed, potentially ruthlessly, until you have a poem you are satisfied with, one that aligns with whatever type of poem you want to create (e.g., haiku, sonnet, or limerick). Consider sharing your work with others for reactions and feedback. Potentially revisit your poem again, and revise as you see best. Finally, reflect on your poem, and share with others if you wish.

A more detailed overview of poetry and the basics of writing it are set out in a short course by Oester ( 2016 ). Such exercises can be used by scientists to further develop or refresh their poetry writing. We encourage scientists to draw on these resources and to share their poetry and creative processes with others—scientists and nonscientists alike.

We support recent calls from Aslan and colleagues ( 2014 ) and Zavaleta and colleagues ( 2017 ) for a broader and more inclusive definition of creativity to be promoted in the conservation science community and in other scientific communities more broadly. There is considerable evidence that exercising creativity through poetry writing, reading, or speaking can develop, maintain, and enhance empathic and innovation skills. Integrating creative practices, such as poetry writing, and developing these skills should be essential components of professional development and practice of conservation scientists. Accordingly, whether in the office, lab, or field, writing and sharing poetry can foster creativity and enhance conservation scientists’ engagement and learning of unfamiliar topics. We base this assertion on the benefits and opportunities detailed in the literature and on those we have observed in our own interdisciplinary practices and projects that integrate poetry with conservation science. Additional benefits to conservation science and practice derived from poetry integration could likely be elucidated through additional work on this topic. Indeed, the potential benefits of science–poetry integrations remain poorly explored (although the effectiveness of poetry as a science communication tool is being investigated; Illingworth 2016 ). Opportunity exists to grow projects and further our understanding of what such initiatives can offer. Identifying approaches that effectively bring together diverse perspectives and tools to inject creativity into complex problems will strengthen our ability to overcome some of society's toughest challenges (NASEM 2018 ).

We thank three anonymous reviewers and two editors for their helpful feedback and suggestions to improve the quality of our manuscript. We also thank the students of Beaumont Middle School for sharing their poetry with us; notably, their poetry was only shared when they agreed to it, using district-approved disclosure forms, and in line with the US Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. Thanks also to Jeremy Hoffman and Gregory Johnson for thoughtful discussions about their science-poetry practice and to participants of the “Using a pencilfish to write whales” workshop for their interest and participation. We extend thanks to all creators who contributed poetry and art referenced in our article and to those who share their poetry and art through the #SciBards network. SRJH recognizes travel support from the Society for Conservation Biology European Section, which allowed her to attend the 4th International Marine Conservation Congress, and funding from the Welsh European Funding Office and European Regional Development Fund under project no. 80761-SU-140 (West).

Author Biographical

Stephanie R. Januchowski-Hartley ( [email protected] ) is affiliated with the Department of Biosciences at Swansea University, in Swansea, United Kingdom. Natalie Sopinka is affiliated with Canadian Science Publishing, in Ottawa, Ontario. Bethann G. Merkle is affiliated with the Wyoming Migration Initiative, in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming, in Laramie. Christina Lux is affiliated with the Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Merced. Anna Zivian is affiliated with the Ocean Conservancy, in Santa Cruz, California. Patrick Goff is affiliated with Beaumont Middle School, in Beaumont, Kentucky. Samantha Oester is affiliated with the Environmental Science and Policy Department at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia.

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EH -- Researching Poems: Strategies for Poetry Research

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Page Overview

This page addresses the research process -- the things that should be done before the actual writing of the paper -- and strategies for engaging in the process.  Although this LibGuide focuses on researching poems or poetry, this particular page is more general in scope and is applicable to most lower-division college research assignments.

Before You Begin

Before beginning any research process, first be absolutely sure you know the requirements of the assignment.  Things such as  

• the date the completed project is due 
• the due dates of any intermediate assignments, like turning in a working bibliography or notes
• the length requirement (minimum word count), if any 
• the minimum number and types (for example, books or articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals) of sources required

These formal requirements are as much a part of the assignment as the paper itself.  They form the box into which you must fit your work.  Do not take them lightly.

When possible, it is helpful to subdivide the overall research process into phases, a tactic which

• makes the idea of research less intimidating because you are dealing with sections at a time rather than the whole process
• makes the process easier to manage
• gives a sense of accomplishment as you move from one phase to the next

Characteristics of a Well-written Paper

Although there are many details that must be given attention in writing a research paper, there are three major criteria which must be met.  A well-written paper is

• Unified:  the paper has only one major idea; or, if it seeks to address multiple points, one point is given priority and the others are subordinated to it.
• Coherent: the body of the paper presents its contents in a logical order easy for readers to follow; use of transitional phrases (in addition, because of this, therefore, etc.) between paragraphs and sentences is important.
• Complete:  the paper delivers on everything it promises and does not leave questions in the mind of the reader; everything mentioned in the introduction is discussed somewhere in the paper; the conclusion does not introduce new ideas or anything not already addressed in the paper.

Basic Research Strategy

• How to Research From Pellissippi State Community College Libraries: discusses the principal components of a simple search strategy.
• Basic Research Strategies From Nassau Community College: a start-up guide for college level research that supplements the information in the preceding link. Tabs two, three, and four plus the Web Evaluation tab are the most useful for JSU students. As with any LibGuide originating from another campus, care must be taken to recognize the information which is applicable generally from that which applies solely to the Guide's home campus. .
• Information Literacy Tutorial From Nassau Community College: an elaboration on the material covered in the preceding link (also from NCC) which discusses that material in greater depth. The quizzes and surveys may be ignored.

Things to Keep in Mind

Although a research assignment can be daunting, there are things which can make the process less stressful, more manageable, and yield a better result.  And they are generally applicable across all types and levels of research.

1.  Be aware of the parameters of the assignment: topic selection options, due date, length requirement, source requirements.  These form the box into which you must fit your work.  

2. Treat the assignment as a series of components or stages rather than one undivided whole.

• devise a schedule for each task in the process: topic selection and refinement (background/overview information), source material from books (JaxCat), source material from journals (databases/Discovery), other sources (internet, interviews, non-print materials); the note-taking, drafting, and editing processes.
• stick to your timetable.  Time can be on your side as a researcher, but only if you keep to your schedule and do not delay or put everything off until just before the assignment deadline. 

3.  Leave enough time between your final draft and the submission date of your work that you can do one final proofread after the paper is no longer "fresh" to you.  You may find passages that need additional work because you see that what is on the page and what you meant to write are quite different.  Even better, have a friend or classmate read your final draft before you submit it.  A fresh pair of eyes sometimes has clearer vision. 

4.  If at any point in the process you encounter difficulties, consult a librarian.  Hunters use guides; fishermen use guides.  Explorers use guides.  When you are doing research, you are an explorer in the realm of ideas; your librarian is your guide. 

A Note on Sources

Research requires engagement with various types of sources.

• Primary sources: the thing itself, such as letters, diaries, documents, a painting, a sculpture; in lower-division literary research, usually a play, poem, or short story.
• Secondary sources: information about the primary source, such as books, essays, journal articles, although images and other media also might be included.  Companions, dictionaries, and encyclopedias are secondary sources.
• Tertiary sources: things such as bibliographies, indexes, or electronic databases (minus the full text) which serve as guides to point researchers toward secondary sources.  A full text database would be a combination of a secondary and tertiary source; some books have a bibliography of additional sources in the back.

Accessing sources requires going through various "information portals," each designed to principally support a certain type of content.  Houston Cole Library provides four principal information portals:

• JaxCat online catalog: books, although other items such as journals, newspapers, DVDs, and musical scores also may be searched for.
• Electronic databases: journal articles, newspaper stories, interviews, reviews (and a few books; JaxCat still should be the "go-to" portal for books).  JaxCat indexes records for the complete item: the book, journal, newspaper, CD but has no records for parts of the complete item: the article in the journal, the editorial in the newspaper, the song off the CD.  Databases contain records for these things.
• Discovery Search: mostly journal articles, but also (some) books and (some) random internet pages.  Discovery combines elements of the other three information portals and is especially useful for searches where one is researching a new or obscure topic about which little is likely to be written, or does not know where the desired information may be concentrated.  Discovery is the only portal which permits simul-searching across databases provided by multiple vendors.
• Internet (Bing, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo, Google, etc.): primarily webpages, especially for businesses (.com), government divisions at all levels (.gov), or organizations (.org). as well as pages for primary source-type documents such as lesson plans and public-domain books.  While book content (Google Books) and journal articles (Google Scholar) are accessible, these are not the strengths of the internet and more successful searches for this type of content can be performed through JaxCat and the databases.  

NOTE: There is no predetermined hierarchy among these information portals as regards which one should be used most or gone to first.  These considerations depend on the task at hand and will vary from assignment o assignment.

The link below provides further information on the different source types.

• Research Methods From Truckee Meadows Community College: a guide to basic research. The tab "What Type of Source?" presents an overview of the various types of information sources, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each.
• << Previous: Find Books
• Last Updated: Apr 19, 2024 7:27 AM
• URL: https://libguides.jsu.edu/litresearchpoems

Poetry Criticism

• Reference Works
• Books and Media
• Journal Articles
• Definitions of Literary Terms
• Reference Sources for Symbols and Allusions in Poetry

Ask a Librarian

Finding Articles

Once a poet has achieved some degree of recognition, people who study poetry will analyze and write articles about his or her poems. Even if an article doesn't mention the poem you are interested in, it may still say something about the poet's style, technique or themes .

The Quick Topic Search (on the library's homepage) will find articles from academic publications and articles from non-academic publications (such as magazines and newspapers). It can be a great place to start your research. However, the Quick Topic Search does not cover all of Langara's article databases . It may be necessary to search in individual article databases to find the most relevant sources for your paper. If you are looking for scholarly articles only, select the "Peer Reviewed" limiter when looking at the search results .

If you are having trouble deciding what is or isn't scholarly, check out our Scholarly vs. Popular Help Guide .

• Scholarly journals vs popular magazines (Langara Library) How to spot the differences.

Search Tips:

• Type the poet's name AND the title of the poem in the search boxes.
• Use "..." quotation marks around the title of the poem to ensure that the search looks only for that exact title.
• If you don't find anything at first, try changing the search to look for the title of the poem in the "full text" of the article . You may find criticism or book reviews this way.
• If you have trouble finding articles on your particular poem, look for articles just about that poet . There will be more to sift through, but you can apply the same ideas, themes, or interact with the analyses of other poetry, stories, or novels.

If the Quick Topic Search is returning too much or too little, try these scholarly databases to find more articles:

NOTE: If you are using a computer off-campus, be prepared to enter your Langara email & password.

Need to find databases for other subjects or need more suggestions? Look at the list of all of our databases .

• List of All Langara Databases
• << Previous: Books and Media
• Next: Definitions of Literary Terms >>
• Last Updated: Nov 14, 2023 4:09 PM
• URL: https://langara.libguides.com/poetry-criticism

Satire on Social Attitudes in Humorous Poetry of Dr. Imran Zafar

ڈاکٹر عمران ظفر کی مزاحیہ شاعری میں سماجی رویوں پر طنز.

• DR. ALI BAYAT Associate Professor, Department of Urdu, University of Tehran, Iran https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9016-6893
• AAMIR BASHIR Research Scholar Urdu, Riphah International University Faisalabad Campus, Pakistan

Humor is the integral part of human life. To escape the seriousness and pain of life, Satire and Humor writers created various forms of humor to temporarily diminish the impact of the harsh realities of life. All these writers try to spread a smile on the faces of human being. Due to social disorders, issues and domestic situations; cause mental stress for the modern man. Such a job of humorist is like a good psychiatrist who strives to reduce environment pressure through his humor. This article describes the satires on social attitudes in the humorous poetry of Dr. Imran Zafar, who has currently become the source of reducing nervous conflict of human race. In his poetry he described the different aspects of social attitudes in a very derisory Humorous style. His books "CORONA MERY AGY" (کرونا مرے آگے) and "SHER AYA SHER AYA" (شعر آیا شعر آیا) are the masterpiece of humor writings. His sense of jocularity becomes more entertaining and fascinating while describing the life from different angles. This article not only discusses his writing style but also reflects the way Dr. Imran Zafar used to reflect aesthetic sense to show his inclination towards humor as well as he showed the unwanted aspects of social attitudes. After gone through his humorous poetry his satire on social attitudes has been revealed which described for the purpose of making reforms in the society.

Author Biographies

Dr. ali bayat, associate professor, department of urdu, university of tehran, iran.

Dr. Ali Bayat is a distinguished Faulty Member in the Department of Urdu at the University of Tehran, Iran. Holding a Ph.D. in Urdu, his fields of interest encompass poetry and Urdu criticism. Dr. Bayat has made substantial contributions to Urdu literature, with 30 articles published in renowned Journals and 05 books, highlighting his expertise and dedication to advancing the study and appreciation of Urdu.

AAMIR BASHIR, Research Scholar Urdu, Riphah International University Faisalabad Campus, Pakistan

Mr. Aamir Bashir is a dedicated Research Scholar at Riphah International University's Faisalabad Campus. He holds M. Phil degree in Urdu and has a special interest in research and editing. Mr. Bashir has contributed to the field of Urdu literature, having published 06 articles and 01 book, underscoring his commitment to academic excellence and literary advancement.

How to Cite

• Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)

HEC Approved 'Y' Category Journal

SUBMISSION Charges:

Initial submission fee: Rs. 1000/- (Non Refundable)

Foreign ,External review: Rs. 6,000/-

Publication Fee: Rs. 6,000/-

Total Fee: Rs. 13,000/-

Editor : Dr. Zafar Ahmad

Publication Frequency : Bi-annual

Full Title : Daryaft

ISSN : 2616-6038 (online); 1814-2885 (print)

Area of Publication : Urdu language and literature 

DARYAFT is indexed in

Current Issue

Research Journal "Daryaft",

Department of Urdu Language & Literature, Faculty of Languages,, NUML, Islamabad, Pakistan

Daryaft is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) .