October 2025 Letter | John Fox, PPM
- IPM Team
- Oct 22
- 7 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Dear Poetic Medicine Friends,
The months roll on and on! This morning I am feeling that this is different than what relationships are about. When I begin this letter “Dear Poetic Medicine Friends” I slow down and someone’s face will appear. I slow down and drop inside to hear what my heart wants to say to you.
The Choice to Slow Down
In order to “drop inside” I slow down. I must slow down. Wherever that mysterious place is, the clock isn’t ticking. Good fortune my heart is beating – and it is not a clock. That is the last thing a clock is, mysterious. Enough can’t be said to praise the choice to slow down.
David Whyte’s prescient words speak to this in his poem Start Close In:
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.
I am slowing down to start this conversation with you. I am so glad to feel the pale ground, the floor beneath my feet. There is something authentic here. I want to start the conversation with…that authenticity, that grounded-ness.
You, someone who cares about this wide-ranging mission of poetic medicine. You, someone who finds nourishment here. You, who helps others, perhaps with creativity, perhaps in other ways. You, who finds community here. The you who may register for a poetry and healing program we offer!
Why this focus on slowing down, on starting with the ground I know?
This August 31, I turned 70 years old. HUH?! What?! Talk about time! This is hard to believe, hard for me to believe. Did I say time rolls on?
Good fortune. I have also, for many years, made a point of slowing down and dropping “inside” to listen to my heart. I imagine this is me stepping out of time. It gives a whole other perspective, a perspective that treasures creativity and relationships.
I drop inside to listen to a person, to others. When I write/say this, I physically feel my head swivel slightly, turn ever-so-slightly to the right, so that my left ear turns to face someone. My ear inclines toward that person.
This turning towards, this listening is made up of openness, respect and attention.
This kind of turning I describe may sound, if you are in-the-midst of a busy day, like I am, asking a little much. I am saying it is okay to pause. In that pause I know that you and I are here, are present. What a treasure, what a gift.
So That My Left Ear Leans in Your Direction
This is another way we can influence our perception of time – so that time isn’t running our lives. Here, creativity rises up, and relationships, any kind of relationship, flourishes.
That rising and flourishing are what makes poetic medicine so beautiful, helpful and so needed these days.
I think this image of slightly turning my head so that my left ear leans in your direction is a way I overcome the disturbing press of Artificial Intelligence at this time and of "smart" phones that capture so much of our attention.
An AI voice, quite helpful at times, somewhat enrapturing and astonishing, never in actuality turns its ear towards you. A Smart Phone, as you scroll through that screen with lightening thumbs, hasn’t done that either, turn an ear.
We may be forgetting entirely about ears and listening and we override our need for this. We are, I fear greatly, becoming machines and algorithms…not true for you perhaps, but true for us, generally speaking. When I travel and am in an airport, I look around – I would say 98% of the people at the gate are looking at their phone.
I found an excellent editorial column in the New York Times on September 4th, Put Down the Phone, America, by Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic Congressman:
“As a father of three children under 6, I do not want their brains programmed by corporations, like software. And as a congressman on the committee that oversees much of technology and commerce, I know there are deeper forces at work here: in our laws and in our markets, America has stacked the deck, in favor of virtual reality over our material reality.”
Poetry and poem-making push back on this stacked deck, these deeper forces. It isn’t only pushing. IPM is showing another, healthy way to go, a humanizing, powerful and vivid way, a creative way that opens the heart.
What matters is your unique voice, your creative voice and your voice of freedom. What matters is that we can do this together.
Let’s return to David Whyte and Start Close In:
To find
another's voice
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.
I keep being told that people no longer have an attention span. Does this make my letter not worthwhile? No. I feel like I can’t give up! I am committed to staying steadfast with you, with me, with us. The “deeper forces at work” that Representative Auchincloss feels would love nothing more than to totally steal our attention, to abduct that fragmented and broken attention for its own commercial purpose which has nothing to do with human thriving.
How can I resist? I resist by slowing down. I resist by letting you know that I need you to stay close by. I am asking you for this:
My Right Shoulder
I need you to touch
my shoulder. I need
your hand to touch
my right shoulder. You,
your right hand and my
right shoulder.
I ask this of you.
Let the pressure
of your palm
touch me there, allow
your holy presence,
come to life,
in my own.
~ John Fox
Perhaps, if it feels okay, you will do this for someone today.
What Is Happening at IPM This Autumn and Early Winter?
So now we get to step back into time! But this time the time is connected to what is happening via The Institute for Poetic Medicine. I have wonderful news to share. Here are some programs that I will be facilitating this Autumn.
❧ So far, since 2012, we have had 3 Cohorts of students complete the 3-year training to become Practitioners of Poetic Medicine (PPM). That has included dedicated work through 3 phases. This November, we will continue with Cohort 4 who are traveling into Phase 2. This Cohort, made up on Chaplains, completed Phase 1 as part of their Clinical Pastoral Education experience under the guidance of Witek Nowosiad at Children’s Medical Center Plano. We look forward to beginning the process of exploring an apprenticeship style of PPM training as we launch Phase 2 for PPM Cohort 4 this November.
❧ November 5 - 9, Janet Childs and I will present to the Expressive Arts & Spirituality Conference at Children’s Medical Center Plano. Janet will bring her love for art and music and I will bring poetry & poem-making. Janet will help us make room in our hearts for grief, for being kind and gentle with ourselves. This will be for employees at Children’s. There is also a public workshop on November 9, Weaving a Tapestry of Possibility with Poetry and Poem-Making. All are welcome to attend that! See more below.
Nov 9 - Weaving a Tapestry of Possibility with Poetry and Poem-Making
with Janet and John
Sunday, Nov 9 12-5pm at Children’s Medical Center Plano
❧ I will travel from Plano to Austin, TX November 11 – 18. There are two different public workshops possible. On Friday evening and Saturday, November 14th and 15th AND another workshop on Sunday, November 16th. Please see the titles and links below!
Nov 14 - Intro to Weaving a Tapestry of Possibility with Poetry and Poem-Making
Friday, Nov 14 6-8:30pm at St Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Nov 15 - Weaving a Tapestry of Possibility with Poetry and Poem-Making
Saturday, Nov 15 9:30-4:30 at St Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Nov 16 - Seven Gifts: Poetry as a Pathway for Renewal
Sunday, Nov 16 9:30-4:30 at Casa de Luz
❧ A nonpublic event – though a beautiful happening – will be to gather with volunteers from a poetry writing and sharing group, Circle Up with Julie Wylie. Some IPM folks will be with them at the women’s Lane Murray Prison for a poetry reading. Circle Up uses IPM’s Poetry as a Tool for Wellness Peer-Facilitator Manual and they bring that into their poetry in prison – not work – their poetry in prison loving gifted overflow.
❧ I will feel joy in December to share co-teaching with Susan O’Connell an on-line three-week program at Cancer Lifeline in Seattle, WA. The title is Embracing Our Whole Selves in Our Life-Journey Through Poetry. That will occur online Tuesdays, December 2, 9 & 16. Susan and I welcome caregivers, family, survivors and those living with cancer. We are in close collaboration with Basha Brownstein at CLL – I have very gladly known Basha since 1997.
❧ Susan O’Connell is a stellar IPM-Certified Practitioner of Poetic Medicine! For years she has led a treasured program Opening the Mystic Heart. In order to meet our turbulent situation in America, Susan has expanded her view of how we are looking at this. November 5, 12 and 19 she will be offering online Poetic Medicine: Care for Our Mystic Hearts in Unsettled and Uncertain Times. Registration for this is nearly full so if this is of interest, jump! You can learn details about that program by reading about it on the registration page: https://givebutter.com/2025OMH2
❧ What is the BIG THING for IPM? In this visit to Austin, I and many wonderful others are inspired to share news about the
in Austin April 25th & 26th 2026, held at the Austin Central Library. The Poetic Medicine Summit will feature workshops and keynote talks by the 2024 Poet Laureate of Texas, Amanda Johnston, by the stellar poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and by the founder of IPM, John Fox (me!). There will be presentations that meet a wide-range of human needs and circumstances, given by IPM Poetry Partners and students of the IPM Poetic Medicine Certification 3-year Program. There will be a bookstore, other fascinating happenings, an open-mic poetry reading. Please join us in Texas next April!
October, Turning,
I am glad to feature at the beginning of this newsletter the poem October, Turning by my friend Linda Tuthill. Linda’s poem brings me comfort and peace, ease and surprise.
In the brook, fallen leaves
float on ripples of light
wearing coats of many colors
as they drift downstream.
All the words in this stanza invite to let go of my breath. If I thought I had better hold on to it, in case I might lose it, the magic of the poem invites me to let go. I become a fallen, colorful leaf, that floats, that drifts. I am not even sure that its necessary to say anymore I slow down…time dissolves before I get to that word.
I slow.
Please take good care as we enter the approaching winter. I hope IPM will bring you meaning and enjoyment, creativity and surprise. We are truly here for you.
Kindness,
John