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June 2025 Letter | John Fox, PPM

Updated: Jun 22

June 15, 2025


Dear Poetic Medicine Friend,


I am astonished that I date this letter as being written on June 15. Ohmigod, half of this year has zoomed past! Yes, I am reclaiming the original sense of what it means to zoom!


Verb 1. zoom - move along very quickly    


(Maybe it is Zoom video-calls that have sped us up?!)


Regardless of the happy and horrific nature of this year (and it certainly includes both in abundance) I am shaking my soon-to-be 70-year-old head (August 31) with near disbelief at this “move along very quickly” reality. Sometimes I feel that part of me is somewhere way back there trying to catch up. I do not want to lose myself!


I don’t know about you, but I wish for a slowing down. Perhaps summer will bring this slowing down?


This is not entirely true – that life is always going fast. One thing that is very true about the practice of poetic medicine – an essential part of its practice, even the primary intention, is to hold in place a deep slowing down.


When I am sitting in a poetic medicine circle, I can relax into this deep slowing down. I am hoping other will too.


I feel this “primary intention” of slowing down is connected to breathing, silence, paying attention and listening. Take one of those words one at a time – slowly – breathing.


Consider it. Breathe.


Or you could try feeling your way into silence. Let the chatter in your mind go.

Find a place where silence abides. Sit and be there.


These are gifts that help me and I hope you, to slow down.


Slowing down is connected to conscious action like asking a poetic medicine participant to read their poem a 2nd time. Let there be silence after the poem is read. I feel this says to a person – you matter, your presence and voice and feeling matter more than time.


This slowing down and presence is what inspired this poem:


THE LISTENING LANGUAGE OF AIR


When people, who, with hearts

and minds engaged take care

with one another and long enough

to pause, to let silence

(and words spoken from the heart)

have a deeper share

of whatever time is given them —

so that our breath, mine and yours,

enriched by listening, touches air.


That element becomes a living presence

which breathes in silence, breathes

in our words, our voice, and then,

when breathing out, opens us up to life,

a sense of grace. As if what we breathe

together in this way is a language of listening,

a universal quiet wherein we understand

each other and even when we don't,

are aware of how it joins us here.


Is there a line or word or image in this poem that resonates for you, that appeals to you? I invite you to say that line, word or image out loud.


Maybe at this moment I can say “here we are.” I can say that while on one level time is zooming along, on another deeper level we are here together. The world, for all its travails, becomes suddenly sweeter.


One way of slowing down is to look towards summer as a way of doing less. Taking time to enjoy the moments of summer sweetness.


***


We are lucky this month to be able to bring the focus of this June newsletter on to two pieces of writing by Dr. Jo Kelly and her daughter Dr. Mary Shea Kelly-Buckley.


A significant part of my work over the decades has been bringing poetry and poem-making into medicine. That includes going to many medical schools, many hospitals. I have had a deep connection to the field of Medical Humanities.


The PBS documentary Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine broadcast in 2008 nationally, is a profound demonstration of this – hearing from both patients and doctors reveal how poetry and poem-making helps them.


Along the way, the pediatrician Jo Kelly and I crossed paths. It began for Jo when, in her words:


One of my friends suggested I read John Fox’s books about poetry and medicine - Poetic Medicine and Finding What You Didn’t Lose.

It changed my trajectory into one of gratitude and attention to the many beautiful moments that occur in a day of having the privilege to care for my patients and their families.


Over the past year or so I learned from Jo that her daughter Shea became a doctor. Not only that … Shea too has made poetry and poem-making centrally significant to her practice. It is something that mother and daughter, fellow physicians, share.


I hope you will read and enjoy what they have to say.


Dr. Shea Kelly-Buckly and Dr. Jo Kelly
Dr. Shea Kelly-Buckly and Dr. Jo Kelly

***


Another thing I want to lift-up here is that The Institute for Poetic Medicine is planning: Poetic Medicine Summit 2026: The Expressive Art of Poetry.


If you have wondered about the "why" and "how" of what we are doing at IPM, and/or how it might relate to you, this Poetic Medicine Summit on April 25 & 26  in Austin, Texas is a must-attend event.


Keynote speakers will include

myself, John Fox,


Click the links here and learn more about each of us!


We hope to see you there too!

Sponsorship and registration information can be found here.


We are very excited about what we will be offering through workshops, presentations, collaborations, and conversations. Community and caring is an important part of what poetic medicine offers and this larger gathering in person will offer so much of that!


We hope you will find that Poetic Medicine Summit 2026 exciting, informative, inspired, and helpful.

 

***


Summer is here. Summer is about life and flourishing. I am all for that! So I hope in sharing this next thing is a message about what helped my flourishing even though it involves a sense of losing.


What could I mean?


In my teens I would go to the Shaker Heights Public Library. There was a kiosk in the center of the main floor. In this kiosk were vinyl records. There was some music but what I was looking for were spoken word recordings by poets.


There was a record of Claire Bloom reading John Keats and other Romantic Poets like Byron and Shelley. Poetry by gravely-voiced and somewhat other-worldly Ezra Pound. Cyril Cusack and Siobahn McKenna read W. B. Yeats in mesmerizing Irish voices. Wallace Stevens read his poetry and it was, for me, pure magic.


All of this happened because of two brilliant young women (from Wikipedia article on Caedmon Audio):


Caedmon Records was a pioneer in the audiobook business, it was the first company to sell spoken-word recordings to the public and has been called the seed of the audiobook industry. Caedmon was founded in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney (later Marianne Mantell).


Here is something about me – I get the daily New York Times – at a reduced rate! My usual practice is to look first for what the editorials are and who they are by. Then…and this must for me, perhaps because I am nearing 70…I look for the obituaries. Who died? They are often fascinating.


The other day a headline was: “Barbara Holdridge, 95, Founder of Spoken Word Label, is Dead.” The close of this article on her life says:


Explaining her aspirations for Caedmon, Ms. Holdridge told NPR in 2002: “We did not want to do a collection of great voices or important literary voices. We wanted them to read as though they were recreating the moment of inspiration. They did exactly that. They read with feeling, an inspiration that came through.”


Listening to Wallace Stevens read The Idea of Order at Key West on that Caedmon record:


She sang beyond the genius of the sea.

The water never formed to mind or voice,

Like a body wholly body, fluttering

Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion

Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,

That was not ours although we understood,

Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.


that is what happened to this 16-year-old poet: inspiration.


The poet’s inspiration came through. I knew I was a poet.


I am deeply grateful to Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney and Caedmon. I hope that what I do carries on what they so beautifully intended: inspiration.


Barbara Holdridge:

"At least two generations have grown up knowing Caedmon Records. Strangers come up to me all the time and tell me what an impact those recordings made in their lives. And this was really the beginning of the spoken word revolution. This multimillion dollar audio industry that we have now owes its inception to two girls recording literature who felt that it was a contribution to understanding.”


Listen to Wallace Stevens read The Idea of Order at Key West

from Wallace Stevens Reads Caedmon

From Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUNw6w4ynI



****

In this letter I've shared some pieces and stories that inspire me.

Please stay in touch with us. Let us know what inspires you.


Please check out what is in this newsletter.

Let’s do our part to slow down. Let’s notice beauty.


Kindness,


John Fox


*by the way, Caedmon was the earliest known English poet and a cow-herd!


Memorial to Caedmon, St Mary's Churchyard. The inscription reads, "To the glory of God and in memory of Caedmon the father of English Sacred Song. Fell asleep hard by, 680" Photo By Rich Tea
Memorial to Caedmon, St Mary's Churchyard. The inscription reads, "To the glory of God and in memory of Caedmon the father of English Sacred Song. Fell asleep hard by, 680" Photo By Rich Tea

Your response to this is welcome. I hope that you will take the time to read the full June Newsletter here.

1 Comment


Thanks for this personal story of inspiration John! I think our early years are so formative- before we overthink and simply follow our inclinations, our loves. At 14 I lived in Honolulu during a big dock strike. Our freshman english texts couldn't arrive...so my english teacher (Leilani Graham with wild fiery red hair sitting atop her desk where all us girls could all see her equally and proudly unshorn legs) brought in Voices, an anthology of contemporary poets. I still have a few of those poems in my heart. I couldn't get enough. Sadly, I never thought I could be a poet, (until you showed us!) Even earlier, it was recordings of Hans Christian Anderson that I played over a…

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