September 2026 Letter | John Fox, PPM
Updated: 5 days ago
September 21, 2026
International Peace Day
Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine,
It is a blessing to write to you about our work. I feel blessings surround us at 360 degrees.
I know we have significant challenges, even dire circumstances, that need our attention as a country and world. The Institute for Poetic Medicine exists to respond to and meet those challenges and circumstances. We exist to nourish and encourage what could be better. We are committed to discover what we do not currently know, to respond to unseen possibilities reaching out to us.
We are here to serve with poetry & healing those in prison, immigrant and refugee, those who cope with mental health challenges, elders and children, people who are unhoused.
That is a modest consideration of where and who our care and concern is touching. There is so much more!
That said, I feel part of my primary purpose in this letter is to celebrate what we can celebrate as I turn, turn, turn to those 360 degrees, as I sing:
To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
No One Knows You Until They Hear Your Story
As I turn, I am reading a spectacular and comprehensive interview in Teachers and Writers Magazine given by Merna Ann Hecht, our Poetry Partner for fifteen years.
You may already know about Merna and her work with teens, encouraging the voices of refugees and immigrant voices, via the 14 years of Stories of Arrival and now in what she is calling Word Travels.
Merna says it all.
Merna’s voice causes my heart to open. Her capacity for love overflows the cup of my mind. The stories and poems that flourish through those teens underlines this fact: know one knows you until they hear your story.
What excited us is that this is true for each and every person. David Kessler the author of the excellent book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, distills this:
“Stories keep people alive.”
We can be proud of our advocacy for Word Travels that is expressed in our long-time support for her and what she does. Please make note of the upcoming events that you can attend.
I hope you’ll read this comprehensive and breath-taking interview:
Linked to what we have from Merna, this month we are featuring the work and a new book brought to light by Marie Boucher. Please see her work and outreach in this newsletter. Please click through to your heart's content!
What Makes IPM so Generative?
I have cherished that word, generative – for a long time.
Generativity applies to our intention & purpose, to our original nature & character, to our relationships & communities, to our spiritual essence & the hopeful seeds we plant.
You and I could sit down and talk at fascinating length about the manifold ways that this poetic medicine work is generative.
As I have tried to speak up during all my years – so much in my life is based on and rooted in keeping relationships, staying-at-heart with a person, nourishing friendships, keeping relationship fresh, treasuring those and that.
Names spark a greater awareness in me of knowing the details of another human being’s life – and sharing my life with them. It could be said that so much of what is good and lasting for IPM could be discovered in that staying, in that attention.
It isn’t only me, that is for sure. This holds true for those we train in this practice, for our Poetry Partners, for our Facilitators, for the many in helping professions who benefit from the “tools” they can make their own.
While I can’t communicate the emotional and meaning a singular poetic medicine moment brings forward when people are writing and sharing poems, you have been present with, in touch with such moments.
You know what I am talking about.
The hand waving enthusiasm of a small boy, the quiet reluctance of a girl standing up –quickly gaining her confidence by the second reading of her poem. I am thinking of my experience at bringing poem-making to 5th graders at Hawken in Cleveland, OH.
I did this a few weeks ago with the help of Darnell Epps – a teacher at Hawken – and a Board member-community builder & story facilitator with IPM.
Molly Toussant, Principal of Hawken Lower School, wrote to me and Darnell:
We have a strong maker culture in our school, anchored by our innovation lab. But I love to think of the spaces where students write as maker spaces as well. John, you invited students to notice and play and make with words last Thursday afternoon.
What struck me was how each student--regardless of previous interest or success with or noted strength or challenge as a writer–engaged and "gave it a go."
Darnell, you were a skilled keeper of time and agenda. John, you were skilled at making each poet who read aloud feel heard and their words admired.
I wish I could have participated more fully. I am grateful for you both.
Warmly,
Molly
I am grateful for what Molly says. I loved working with those children. She couldn’t have said it better about how Darnell made a big difference! Thank you, Darnell!
It is my prayer that in our brief time together, seeds were planted, experience was gained, that will lead to a generativity that confers possibilities upon these children – even years from now. I have faith in this.
Important News about Practitioners of Poetic Medicine,
Welcoming Erin Bach, Increasing Our Financial Obligations
We began a Practitioner of Poetic Medicine (PPM) training program in 2012. PPM Certification involves 3 distinct Phases of study – and up to now has arranged for 3 years.
That has continued steadily since then. We have journeyed through 3 Cohorts! Eighteen people have received Certification as a Practitioner of Poetic Medicine and they are bringing that training and their unique gifts into the world. Many are directly involved in what IPM is doing!
Currently Cohort 4 is entering into Phase 3. That cohort is comprised of eight chaplains who have studied and completed their certification in Clinical Pastoral Education. Most of them (7) are affiliated with Children's Health, a pediatric hospital in Plano, TX. One chaplain in the Cohort is employed by a rehabilitation hospital in the Dallas, TX area.
The good news is that, as I write this sentence, Cohort 5 begins Phase 1, under the guidance of Erin Bach. She begins with eleven students. Eleven!!! I want to bow to Mary Price for her dedicated attention to bringing in students.
Erin is the IPM Education Director – and I like to include this – she is our Curriculum Chair.
Erin acted in a comparable IPM position to Mary some years ago. Erin received an MFA in Poetry from Ashland University. She has led poetry circles – through Decatur Healing Arts in Decatur, GA – the place where we originally met. She led a five-session poetry circle during Covid Lockdown.
Erin organized, arranged, revised (brought up-to-date and improved) all the material (my letters, the various handouts) from Phase 2 and adroitly presents this class material to Cohort 4 students.
She taught for ten years as a public-school teacher and then years as a creator/organizer of high school curriculum. She has brought that curriculum gift to our work.
I am very grateful to Erin for making us and the PPM training better, more expansive, in fact, more generative in this way.
Given the fact that Erin is stepping in to shape our curriculum and is now becoming the teacher for Phase 1 of Cohort 5 – we are increasing our financial obligations – and with this expansiveness, we are planning for it to increase our nonprofit income.
We will move forward with the understanding that our continued efforts at fundraising matter even more. There will be need for scholarships. Please consider how you can help.
John’s Upcoming Travel – East Stroudsburg & Phoenixville, PA;
Union, NJ; Plano, TX
I will travel in mid-October to points east for a range of poetic medicine programs and towards the end of October returning west to Children’s Health Pediatric Hospital.
My visits are arranged by three friends of IPM – Jim Elsaesser and Jean Richardson for the eastern programs, and Witek Nowosiad at Children’s Health in Plano, TX for the west. This is all a reprise for me and this healing work.
I visited Eastern PA last year in mid-winter and traveled with Jean and Jim, a caravanserai, to many places. Such a joy! We aren’t travel partners for this visit but we're happily partnering again.
Jim has set up a gathering with his men’s group that has been meeting for 32 years. He has set up a Sunday morning message and an evening workshop at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Poconos. We will travel to Union, NJ to bring poetic medicine to Bridgeway Behavioral Services for people with special needs. Jim, with therapist Delia Cortes, has brought poetic medicine for six years. I was a Bridgeway guest and that poetry circle was inspiring beyond measure. I don’t have release forms; the picture I wish I could share is GLOWING.
Jean Richardson, one of the founders of Circles of Courageous Commons, has invited me to offer Connections: Synapses of Flourishing in Creating Human Experience, a three-day program of writing poems and explorations of connections in our lives. That will occur in East Stroudsburg Friday, October 23rd thru Sunday, October 25th. There are a few spaces still available. Please see more information on the flyer here and learn more about the nonprofit Circles of Courageous Commons here:
Last year, Jean arranged for a visit to Camphill Soltane in Glenmore, PA and through Joseph Rubano we developed a relationship with Camphill Copake in Copake, NY.
Both are marvelous communities for people with special needs. I loved joining with Jean and Jim to share poetic medicine.
This time we will visit Parzival in Phoenixville, PA. I am blessed with poetic medicine to have the chance to respond to this:
Parzival empowers people with disabilities to pursue meaningful, fulfilling lives of their own choosing and realize their unique gifts.
I have to pause to consider with my quietly beating heart that after my visit east I will go to Plano, TX (very close to Dallas) to be the guest once again at Children’s Health – a pediatric hospital with 280 beds. I say pause because even for me life can seem like it rolls on and on.
I want to remember the sacred quality and gifted opportunity that this is.
My host is Witek Nowosiad – lead chaplain at Children’s, an IPM Board member, a profoundly influential man in making our nonprofit and “who we are” flourish. I think this is my 4th or 5th visit to Children’s Health.
We invite people to gather in person for a public workshop, held at Children’s Health, sponsored by IPM, from 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28th.
Our theme is Seeing Takes Time.
Later that week, on Friday, October 30th from 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., there is a retreat dedicated to all chaplains in Dallas area hospitals, including Children’s Health. During our time together we will respond, via poetry and poem-making, to these questions:
How do I sustain myself, care for myself as I care for others, as a hospital chaplain?
How do I nurture my creativity soulful connection to inner & physical self in the midst of caring for others?
One of the blessings Witek has brought is to help to bring in people preparing to become Practitioners of Poetic Medicine (PPM) – 8 chaplains who have studied Clinical Pastoral Education and are now learning the Poetic Medicine Facilitation skills included in the 3 Phase / 3 Year PPM training. These superb students are poised to engage Phase 3, which is the primarily the practicum phase.
As we make this transition, we hold what we call a Colloquium for two days – October 31 & November 1. This will be a looking back over the past two years of deep study, shared experience, much writing – and looking ahead to the year approaching.
This days won’t be abstract but a genuinely felt-sense experience.
We Are Part of a Greater Community
In the background of all that we do through IPM, we are aware of being part of a greater community – community, state, country, world, planet, universe.
Those are not merely words – there is sorrow, there is joy – there are grave troubles & authentic hopefulness – there is injustice & surges towards fairness – we are faced with genocides and I am not pairing that with anything.
This newsletter is dedicated to sharing healing possibilities. You, because you opened this IPM September Newsletter, are integral to this hopefulness, this possibility.
We invite you to take part in raising possibilities & hope in our national story by voting this coming November.
Finally, I can say this about our direct involvement in speaking truth to power:
Please note below a link to an interview I gave to Vijay K. Nathan and W. Lance Hunt and their “The Truth to Power Show” on Radio Free Brooklyn that airs Sunday, September 27th at 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.. This interview will be available in the Truth to Power archive. https://www.radiofreebrooklyn.org/show/the-truth-to-power-show/
We welcome you to contact us. We want to know what matters to you.
Kindness,
John Fox
IPM Founder
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