I read: "How could I have been so wrong? / How did I think you would fight / for my dark history? / How did I believe you could do it all […]?" and immediately all the relationships I've had throughout my life come to mind, my own and others', all with their hidden corners of doubts, fears, tenderness, and longings. This is one of the superpowers of poetry: with a few verses it draws an entire life, tears it open, and caresses it.
I have in my hands the collected poetry of the Catalan poet Jordi Virallonga, which has just been published under the title There are always ruins less than two hours away And, while he reviews his life through an immense body of work, I review mine, guided by his words. Poetry takes you to unknown depths, but then elevates you.
And it's not that poetry needs arguments to exist or reasons in the form of benefits that can commercialize it, not at all, but throughout recent times several studies have shown the psychological benefits that reading or writing poetry has for people.
To begin with, poetry allows us to express complex emotions in a creative, metaphorical, and imaginative way, facilitating the understanding and management of difficult feelings, especially for those who suffer from anxiety or who live with emotional trauma. The first impact is on oneself, since it encourages self-reflection and allows us to better understand our experiences: we gain perspective on our lives. But this effect soon extends to relationships with others, generating empathy by connecting people through shared experiences. Reading or listening to poems that resonate personally can strengthen social support and create a sense of community.
I find the research conducted with adolescents especially interesting, at a time when everything indicates that their levels of anxiety and depression are well above what is desirable. An experimental North American study published inJournal of Student Researchwith high school students for three weeks showed that writing a daily poem could significantly improve young people's emotional well-being. Participants reported a decrease in the negative effects of social isolation and other pandemic-related stress and anxiety.
Also during Covid-19, the University of Plymouth and Nottingham Trent University analyzed the impact of reading, writing, and sharing poetry. They found that these activities reduced loneliness, anxiety, and depression. In a survey of 400 participants, 51 percent indicated that poetry had helped them manage feelings of isolation, and 50 percent that it had relieved their anxiety and depression. Additionally, 34 percent felt less anxious, and 24 percent were better able to manage their problems. In fact, during World Mental Health Month 2020, the United Nations launched a poetry series, Poems of healing, with the aim of helping people express difficult emotions.
Later, in 2023, poetry was also used in clinical settings to help hospital patients develop a positive attitude toward life, set high goals, and form healthy personality traits. Patients empathized with the poets' emotions, promoting emotional resilience and improving psychological disorders. Further evidence has emerged from a new study published inJournal of Poetry Therapyin 2024, which has shown after eight sessions of group therapy with poetry that participants experienced a significant reduction in emotional distress and an improvement in the ability to express feelings adaptively.
In short, science shows us the power of poetry as a therapeutic tool to promote self-awareness, process emotions, reduce stress and foster bonds of friendship and community.
But it would not be fair to talk only about benefits and not about the enormous delight that poetry evokes. Listening to poetry stimulates brain circuits related to pleasure, similar to those activated by music. This includes deep emotional responses and the ecstasy typical of the human arts, like these verses by Alejandra Pizarnik that I leave you as a gift for Sant Jordi: "You need not to expect anything / You need not to traffic in your pain / You need pride and loneliness / You need poetry" ("You need to expect nothing / You need to not traffic in pain / You need pride and loneliness / You need poetry").
