September 2025 Letter | John Fox, PPM

Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine,

To begin this letter I want to pause to remember Mari Alschuler -- an important person in my experience of Poetry Therapy. A friend. I met her 30 years ago! A remarkable poet and loving poetry therapist, Mari valued The Institute for Poetic Medicine. Mari died this week after a courageous and steadfast commitment to being very much alive, in spite of having pancreatic cancer. In next month's IPM newsletter, along with some of her poetry therapy friends, we will feature and better remember Mari.

I invite you to pause here with me before continuing on with the letter I wrote before I learned of Mari's passing. . .

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~ Albert Camus

I am welcoming Autumn with its colors & contrasts, its slowing down & call to reflection.  There is something restorative in all of that. I wish restoration for you.

By contrasts, I mean beauty being so intimately connected with letting go – letting go of apparent life – the lessons of the leaf.

These days I find I cannot be too free-feeling about life. We are, in this country and the world, in a raw, violent and troubling condition, I want to acknowledge that.    

This letter isn’t a place to dive directly into that rawness, but I can say with passion and faith that what we call poetic medicine offers a response - a way to respond - to what life is giving you and is giving us. We know life is more than what we hear in a national media space. Some of what we hear is critical to sustaining democracy.  Yet, often what is missing is creativity.  The creative voices of you and I.  

To everything turn, turn, turn...

~Pete Seeger

(international hit adaptation by the Byrds)

from "Turn! Turn! Turn!" or "To Everything There is a Season"

At one turn, poetry and poem-making proves a gentle buffer of comfort and reassurance. 

In another turn, it is a creative flowing river that carries you towards and into healing and wisdom uniquely attuned to you. 

A turn might be letting solitude, even stillness, have more room in your heart. There are so many turns! Your turn may be a fiercely forged truth-telling.

What may be most important and truest to say is that beyond my suggested “turns” your writing will give you what you need.  It is our Poetic Medicine experience that by attending to what you need/want to say and write - that is, to be authentic - that’s where power, surprise, and meaning reside, and in our poetic medicine circle this authenticity is recognized. In these spaces, when others listen to you, they will respond with beautiful affirmation.

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Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~ Albert Camus

I bring this quote from Camus back to your attention now; I want to say a little more about contrast!

Contrast captures our attention. Contrast insists on recognition, on having a place. Albert Camus, even with his intense existential lean, believes Autumn brings another Spring forward. To me, this is a delightful and surprising thought. Perhaps this surprise, this freshness, is at the beating heart of the existential!?

Yet, James Baldwin is not so convinced. He adds a kind of pragmatic creative honesty, he includes a shadow that must have a voice, a voice necessary for us to truly see what’s going on:

Such trees as there were allowed their leaves to fall —

they fell unnoticed — seeming to promise,

not without bitterness,

to endure another year.

~ James Baldwin

These words by James Baldwin are not about despair but he doesn’t deny falling leaves are “unnoticed” or the reality of the capacity to “endure.” That, endurance, rather than some heaven, is the promise.

I have fallen unnoticed. You likely, at some point, fell unnoticed. It is true that I have had to endure which is different from thriving. You too?

My inner poetry therapist, who is inveterate, incorrigible and insistent, thinks immediately of these lines by William Stafford regarding shadow and voice:

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

from "A Ritual to Read to Each Other"

I will say, without equivocation, in these troubled even cruel times, that we at IPM affirm empathy, kindness, compassion, courage and caring – for self and others – these are human and spiritual values we want to nourish and celebrate.

Yet, even more, these days, we invite a revolutionary spirit, that is, for as many people as possible, be willing to tap into “something shadowy, / a remote important region in all who talk.”

You can do that here with IPM! We are here for you for that. Here is what we are offering this fall…

• Tara Broderick and Ashley Romberg, in October will offer Living with Parkinson’s: Poetry as a Tool for Wellness to people living with Parkinson’s, to their loved-ones, friends and care-givers, an eight-part, strength-based experience of Poetry as a Tool for Wellness.  You can read much more through the link above.

• Poetry as a Tool for Wellness has recently begun a new Facilitator Training cohort that reaches around the globe! This stellar eight-part program with an amazing team of teachers is for everyone. We will offer more of these training sessions in 2026 and invite you to learn how this program can serve and inspire you professionally and personally.

• Poetry as Tool for Wellness has an incredible wing span! Practicing Self-Care is the poetry circle to be offered on October 18th at 11am Pacific. I am often able to attend these Saturday sessions—so glad I can be a participant—my heart is nourished. Please check out the stand-alone sessions we offer each month by visiting our home page www.poeticmedicine.org

• Susan O'Connell will offer Poetic Medicine: Care for our Mystic Hearts in Unsettled and Uncertain Times, a 3-week series as a fundraiser for IPM starting on November 5th at 3pm Pacific. More details about this series can be found through the link above - spaces are limited so I encourage you to register early!

  
  

• Janet Childs and I will visit Plano, TX for a public workshop on Sunday, November 9th. This is part of our bringing Poetic Medicine to Children’s Hospital for many days with the support of lead chaplain at Children’s and IPM Board Member, Witek Nowosiad. Then I will travel to Austin, TX, between November 11-17 and offer another public workshop (date and theme to be announced). Stay tuned for more information on these visits to the Lone Star State in next month’s newsletter.

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I recently completed a two-week visit to my hometown of Cleveland, OH. It was, in part, a choice to be there for my 70th birthday on August 31. While I have lived in California since 1979 when I was 23, I have, for almost fifty years, kept a strong connection with northeast Ohio. I still feel my deep midwestern roots are there.

You can be sure I had plenty of fun – fun included attending Cleveland Guardians baseball games.  I found many ways to “awaken soulfulness in the human voice.” Poem-making happened across the life-span and happily, beyond boundaries.

Next month I will share remarkable stories about my visit.    

Please keep IPM in mind for your financial support. I savor the expansive beauty of what happens through IPM and I easily forget such financial support is needed for beauty to flourish. Beauty and truth will flourish no matter what, because of poetry’s generative power – it can’t be otherwise.

I know you will understand that on this sacred ground of earth, generosity is welcome.  Thank you for your interest, your belief in us. I leave the last word to Buson…

Autumn Haiku

Blown from the west, fallen leaves gather

in the east.

Calligraphy of geese against the sky —

the moon seals it.

Yosa Buson (1716-1783)

Kindness,

John