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August 2026 Letter | John Fox, PPM

Updated: 6 days ago

Dear Poetic Medicine Friends,


The call of poetry-as-healer has such deep roots in my life. I suddenly remembered a particular root the other day. I want to share with you that connection/root from 1975 of reaching the marginalized with poetry. Please read on!



Stephen Levine, Joy Shieman & My Path of Poetic Medicine


Usually, I say that it got going in 1981 when I first met Stephen Levine as a participant in his Conscious Living, Conscious Dying retreats.


I became more than a participant – Stephen asked me to manage some of those longer five-day retreats. What a blessing that was to be so involved – even though if I secretly felt that Stephen and his wife Ondrea were a little crazy asking me to do that.


The further good fortune is that Stephen, as a poet, appreciated me as a poet – and beyond managing those retreats, asked me to bring and share poems.



Me, Ondrea and Stephen at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon. I am holding a photograph of the Indian saint, Ananda Moi Ma – a gift from that lovely couple. This was probably about 1982 or 1983. I would be about twenty-six. I am turning to my left in my apartment and I see that picture on a little altar in my office.




After one of those poetry readings, I think it was at the Angela Center in Santa Rosa, I was approached by an Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Zubrick. Ken said, “You are talking about poetry-as-a-healer and you should meet a poetry therapist at the hospital where I work – El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA."


Joy Shieman, a very original pioneer in the field of Poetry Therapy, had brought poetry therapy to the Mental Health Wing 1South since 1962.


Joy was very involved in the development of Poetry Therapy as a therapeutic field – just like Art, Music, Dance and Drama. This was all new to me! I was talking about that -- poetry-as-healer?!


Ken, who, as an Orthopedic doctor, was a kind of Poetic Justice Messenger for me because of ongoing trouble with my right leg, I grew up with Orthopedic physicians.


Life serindiptously led me to move into the vicinity of El Camino Hospital and I introduced myself to Joy Shieman. One thing quickly led to another and I became Joy’s poetry therapy intern for 2.5 years.


Again, what a blessing that was and is now.


This is us at El Camino on 1South, the Mental Health Wing. Joy in her generously humble way sits on the floor with a table of little stones, geodes, shells by her side. I am obscured, gesturing with my hands. These are not patients on 1South, to get this picture, we invited social workers to sit in the circle. This would be about 1985 or 1986.



George Starbuck, Anne Sexton & Boston University


Yet, if I stop – if I stop and pause – I realize that when I made the choice to attend Boston University for my undergraduate studies in 1973 – convinced their creative writing program was the one for me -- it was the only school to which I applied.


That was a time when I first got a sense for how creative writing wasn’t about critique, at least not mainly.


As a late junior in high school or perhaps it was as a early senior, I had made this choice of B. U. because I knew that the Director of Creative Writing, Mr. George Starbuck, had been the Chair at the University of Iowa Creative writing Department. IOWA WAS THE PLACE to go for creative writing – I learned that even then. Yet I was not drawn there – I was drawn to Boston and Boston University.


I decided to send some poems from that high school time to Mr. Starbuck and get his opinion, letting him know my desire to attend B.U.


George Starbuck wrote back to me:



Those words:


“Helpful talk between writers about their work takes time and acquaintance.”


Even then, at eighteen, those words shook me. He showed such incredible respect and wisdom for this high school poetic aspirant. There is a sweet humor too. "Okay, so you are a writer." He gave a good word to admissions. George Starbuck turned out to be one of the kindest persons I have ever met.


He wasn’t talking about poetry therapy but in another way, you can hear it, he was.


Helpful talk. Time. Acquaintance. Between writers.


The story of my relationship with B.U. and creative writing got complicated. The main poet teacher there in 1973 and early 1974, who I was intent on learning from, was the remarkable poet, Anne Sexton.


I would have begun to study with her in the Fall of 1974.


I remember sitting in Mr. Starbuck’s office in October of 1974 in the Creative Writing office at the end of Bay State Road. He had just learned that his close friend, Anne Sexton, had taken her life.


At nineteen, what did I know? I could tell how resigned, I could see how sad George Starbuck’s face looked. This affected me greatly as I decided to leave Boston University for Bard College.


This is a brief paragraph but my right leg below the knee had been amputated earlier that year, in May of 1974. After 14 years of trying to save it, it was beyond repair. I didn’t exactly kill it, it didn’t commit suicide, but it was time to let it go.


I understood and felt in my heart more about pain and grief than I could have said at the time.



Elizabeth “Ma” Barker and Bringing Poetry into Prison.


Before that happened, I am remembering something else that was my great good fortune to experience. In that Sophomore year (1974-75), before I transferred to Bard, – I decided to take an English course taught by Elizabeth Barker.


Who was Elizabeth “Ma” Barker?


Community organizer and poet Elizabeth Barker was an untenured instructor at Boston University in the early 1970s when she brought a group of BU students to the medium-security prison MCI Norfolk to compete against men who had created their own version of the popular College Bowl quiz show on radio and TV while incarcerated there.


I do not remember how much I knew – whether I knew before I took her course that she was bringing students into prison – or if I learned once I enrolled. This paragraph above is about a time (1969) before I stepped into the picture.


I went into to Norfolk prison to bring poetry not to compete in the College Bowl! I was nineteen and my heart was open to this even if I do not remember details.


My point is that Elizabeth Barker was a very early inspiration and mentor. I wish I could let her know what path I have followed, with her lighting the way ahead even if I didn't know it at the time. It is important to celebrate that this prison program is going on even now for 52 years.


This is from B. U.’s obituary for Elizabeth “Ma” Barker:


Elizabeth "Ma" Barker, a labor organizer, a tenant activist, a CAS and MET associate professor emerita, whose greatest passion was educating the inmates of Massachusetts prisons, died on February 16. She was 89.




I am sharing more of my story, life-journey, and I hope you find it of interest.


So what about now?!



Visiting My Hometown & Bringing Lots of Poetic Medicine


I am about to travel to my dear hometown, Cleveland, OH. That visit Sunday August 23 through Sunday September 6.


I grew up in Cleveland (in Lorain and Shaker Heights) and still love my hometown. I return every year. While my family of two sisters and parents have died, my brother Chris Fox, and his partner Lynn Segelin, live in Cleveland Heights.


I will be glad to see them.


There are many and varied programs that will take place. If you are in the vicinity of northeast Ohio and if you feel adventurous, it is fairly easy to get to Cleveland from points East, West and South.


The two main public events are


  • The Community of St. Peter on Euclid in Cleveland on Friday evening and Saturday on August 28th and August 29th. I have “created” a retreat called CONNECTIONS: Synapses of Flourishing in Creating Human Experience.


    It is a talk with a slide show and writing Friday evening and a further journey with writing all day Saturday.


and



If you can let others know about this, I am grateful.


While these are the public possibilities, I am looking forward to many other non-public visits.


I will write with Elders at Laurel Lake Retirement Community. That two-day “retreat” is titled: We Had the Experience: Responding to Our Past with Poetic Words. I have been going to Laurel Lake for the past 16 years, working with Chaplain Mary Tatman and Chaplain Jon Dodson – about 8 years each. It is a joy to make this collaboration.


I will visit Hawken School --- to bring poetry and poem-making to the teachers in the Lower School, Grades K – 5. They invite my help to give them support for making the experience of poetry and poem-making with children a creative flourishing. My intention is to begin that creative flourishing for the teachers themselves!


One wonderful connection at Hawken is that the Director of the Lower School, Molly Toussant, was previously involved with the Intergenerational School in Cleveland. There Molly knew of the wonderful Tara Broderick, a long time Poetry Partner for IPM, who brought poetry and poem-making to Elder mentors and children at the Intergenerational School.


There are so many of these overlapping, rich, astonishing connections with those who are woven into this work. If you feel inclined to support us, you will be putting that support into these astonishing connections.


Another very dear visit will be to step into the gracious atmosphere of the 2100 Lakeside Shelter for Men. I first went there in 2009. You learned about 2100 in our last newsletter – learning about the remarkable Annie Holden and what she has done bringing poetry and poem-making to these amazing men since 2009.



Lupita McClanahan, Dine Elder


I want to give a big shout-out to my friends who took part in the visit in the first part of this year when Lupita McClanahan, a Diné Elder visited Mountain View and Carmel Valley to bring her beautiful presence and an exquisite talk, The Path to Hozho-Teachings of the Beauty Way in Difficult Times.


To call it a “talk” isn’t very accurate.


What happened with Lupita was much more of a 4-Dimensional Experience. These dimensions are explored in the essays by Bob Steinberg, Marie Boucher, Liz Sanders, April Johnson, and myself.


There is an additional blog by April Johnson about her experience with her mother of Lupita.


Please read here about the Poetic Medicine Summit – especially the upcoming program Saturday, August 22, with Julie Wylie and the women of Circle Up who bring poetry into prison.


I hope to see you along the way.


May you be well.


Kindness,


John Fox

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