Poetry as Healer: An Exploration of Poetry’s Ability To Speak the Words We Need to Say

What is poetry if not among other things an instrument

that helps us take readings of our own hearts. –Parker Palmer

Sometimes we find ourselves at a loss for words or knowing how to integrate a traumatic experience. And sometimes we’re frozen with anxiety about the future. Other times we feel alone sure that no one else feels the way we do. In these times poetry can serve as a healer.

Reading and absorbing the words of a poet giving voice to what you haven’t been able to say or writing (even clumsily) the words your soul longs to share can give you the breathing space to begin to heal.

Join us for a day exploring experiencing and celebrating the healing power of poetry. Choose the breakout sessions that call to you and be inspired by our keynote speakers. Throughout the day there will also be contemplative times to pause breathe and reflect upon what you’ve heard read or written.

Each session will include experiencing poetry time for personal reflection and—in some cases—an invitation to write and share. No prior experience reading or writing poetry is necessary. Sharing your thoughts and writing is always by invitation.

DATE: Saturday April 5th

TIME: 9:30am to 5:00pm

FEE: Day Pass: $125 per person (partial scholarships available)

LOCATION: UT Austin Commons Conference Center

(10100 Burnet Road Bldg 137 Austin TX 78758)

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Paula D’Arcy & Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson

SCHEDULE for this Inspiring Day:

9:30am

Welcome land acknowledgement minute of silence.

9:45am

Opening Keynote: Poetry as Healer: Paula D’Arcy shares the poems that have guided her through the years from grief to abiding joy. 

10:30am to 10:45am

BREAK

10:45am to Noon

Morning Sessions (Choose One):

Listening to the Wisdom of Our Wounds

Facilitator: Marshall Lyles 

Writing poetry that shines a light on the experience and wisdom of the wounded parts of self opens us to the possibility for a return to wholeness and healing. Guided by therapist Marshall Lyles experienced in using poetry in therapy sessions you’re invited to write the words your wounds wish to share.

Giving Voice to Grief

Facilitator: Dr. Claire Colombo

Using prose poetry as the medium Dr. Colombo will share select poems that offer a doorway through which grief can begin to be processed. She’ll also invite you to use the parameters of prose poetry to help you begin to give voice to any grief you’re experiencing.

Words to Live By: Poems to Carry with You

Facilitator: Rev. Gina Bethune 

There are poems that are worthy of memorizing or keeping a copy by our bedside. These words capture the imagination and can fuel our journey when we’re setting out on a new adventure or feeling lost and in need of a light in the tunnel. Inviting you into the wisdom and inspiration of 3-5 revered poems together we’ll explore what makes these poems worth bringing along on any healing journey.

Noon to 12:15pm

Transition Break

12:15pm

Lunch with Words – a playful opportunity to connect over lunch. (60 minutes) – Gourmet Boxed Lunches Provided.

1:15pm to 1:30pm

Transition Break

1:30pm to 2:45pm

Afternoon Sessions (Choose One):

Praising Nature Praising Earth

Facilitator: Sasha West.

Poets have long known how to give voice to the healing gifts to be found in the wilderness city park and backyard. Amid climate change and other ecological challenges poets also express our fears for the future and inspire us to make a difference now. In this session Dr. West will offer poems that take us into the wilderness bring us the peace to be found in nature and call us to action in support of mother earth.

Truths We Need to Hear 

Facilitator: Rod Carlos Rodriguez 

Truths We Need to Hear with Rod Carlos Rodriguez. An integral part of the healing process for many is speaking your truth and truly being heard. Poetry can speak the words we long to share in ways that others can begin to understand. In this session Rod will offer some examples of poetry sparking needed change and healing and help us be with these poems in a way that can spark our own transformation.

Words in Me 

Facilitator: Cathey Capers 

Writing your own poetry with an Institute for Poetic Medicine (IPM) facilitator. Drawing on the wisdom of John Fox the founder of IPM Cathey Capers will invite you to write the words your heart longs to share. Safely and with respect you’ll be invited to listen to each other’s poems or reflections in small groups.

2:45pm to 3:00pm

Transition Break

3:00pm to 3:45pm

Closing Keynote: Why Poetry? Why Now? Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson on how poetry helps connect us hear what we need to hear and leads us to joy. 

3:45pm

Departure for those needing to leave the formal program.

4:00pm

Contemplative Poetry Reading with speakers + attendees while enjoying dessert…

5:00pm

Wrap Up an amazing day as we remind people of the four follow up Zoom sessions.

Follow Up:

Four (Weekly) Optional & Free 60-minute Zoom sessions open to all registrants to build upon connections made this day and reinforce what a contemplative experience of poetry is. In addition local poets will share how they seek and find the poems they need to hear at different times in their lives and what poems they’re exploring right now. Tuesdays 7pm-8pm April 8th 15th 22nd and 29th.

ABOUT OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Paula D’Arcy

Writer retreat leader and conference and seminar speaker Paula D’Arcy is also President of Red Bird Foundation which supports the growth and spiritual development of those in need as well as those invested in the opening of the heart and the healing of this world.

A former psychotherapist who ministered to those facing issues of grief and loss Paula worked with the Peale Foundation founded by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale from 1980 until his death in 1993 and has written fifteen books. Today her work includes leading workshops and retreats related to spirituality writing women’s gatherings (including Women’s Initiation and Rites of Passage) and creating venues where men and women experience an opening of the heart and a change in their way of being in the world. In recent years she has teamed with Richard Rohr to present seminars on the Male/Female Journey and Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson hails from San Antonio TX. where she is the 5th Poet Laureate Emeritus 2020-2023. She has collaborated with artists from around the globe and her work is a fusion of poetry hip hop and rhythm and blues vocalization. She is a teaching artist and artist in residence for Gemini Ink and Hearts Need Art that facilitates workshops and features throughout the U.S. from: Michigan State University DePauw University University of Pennsylvania Rice University and many others. She authored She Tastes Like Music FlowerSong Press 2020.

Andrea is an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and was voted Best Local Poet 2023 and 2021 by The SA Current. Sanderson has had the distinct honor of opening up for Dr.Cornel West Phylicia Rashad and Nikki Giovanni. Her writings and teaching have been highlighted by: The Nuyorican Poets Cafe stations PBS and KLRN and documentaries and festivals worldwide.

ABOUT OUR BREAKOUT FACILITATORS:

Dr. Claire Colombo:

Dr. Claire Miller Colombo teaches writing theology and the arts at Southwest and directs the seminary’s Center for Writing and Creative Expression which publishes the Open House arts journal Soul by Southwest. Halfway through her Ph.D. program in English at the University of Texas she realized she would rather be studying theology. She ventured onto the Southwest campus in 2010 to do just that and never really left.

Sasha West:

Sasha West is the author of How to Abandon Ship and Failure and I Bury the Body winner of the National Poetry Series a Texas Institute of Letters award and a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship. Recent poems have appeared in American Poetry Review Ecotone Georgia Review and the anthology The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood. As part of eco-arts collaborative Hammonds + West her multi-media shows with visual artist Hollis Hammonds have been exhibited at the Columbus College of Art and Design Texas A&M ArtPrize 2023 Michigan and elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University where she runs the Environmental Humanities program.

Rev. Gina Bethune:

Rev. Gina Bethune recently retired from Ascension Texas where she directed Chaplain Services and Clinical Pastoral Education for over twenty years. In addition she served as an Adjunct Faculty member of the Seminary of the Southwest for a decade. Currently she is enjoying more time to nurture her soul through poetry art gardening traveling and time with her husband and grandchildren. Gina led CPE students in utilizing poetry for personal growth and as a tool for caring for patients. She developed an Arts and Medicine program at Dell Medical Center in Austin where students utilized poetry and other forms of art with patients and staff. Believing poetry can be a form of healing as one identifies with and gives voice to thoughts and feelings Gina continues to integrate poetry in her life experiences.

Cathey Capers:

Her passion is the intersection of poetry and contemplation. A graduate of the Institute for Poetic Medicine’s 3-year certification program Cathey offers poetic medicine programs in the Austin area and is a popular Eremos facilitator. She’s also a graduate of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation’s Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats.

Rod Carlos Rodriguez:

Rod Carlos Rodriguez has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and is a Lecturer (Adjunct Professor) at the University of Texas at San Antonio Writing Program. He is an award-winning poet who has been writing for over 40 years. He has 4 books of poetry published and his forthcoming poetry collection A History of Echoes will be published by Gival Press in October 2024. He is founder/chair of the Sun Poet’s Society South Texas’s longest running weekly open-mic poetry reading (1995-2022). He was nominated for the San Antonio Poet Laureate in April 2012 April 2014 April 2016 and April 2018. He was the poetry editor for Ocotillo Review a literary journal/periodical and he was the editor of the Texas Poetry Calendar 2023 (Kallisto Gaia Press).

Marshall Lyles:

Marshall Lyles LPC-S LMFT-S RPT-S EMDRIA Approved Consultant has over 20 years of practice in family and play therapy. He has extensive speaking and training experience and has worked in a variety of mental health settings. Marshall’s speaking topics have recently focused on developing expressive play and sandtray therapy skills encouraging relational parenting perspectives addressing person-of-the-therapist issues improving systemic interventions utilizing metaphor in therapy (with poetry for example) promoting secure attachment relationships in families and increasing trauma-informed knowledge.

Host or Publisher Eremos, a center of conteplative life