Esther Morgan from Grace(Bloodaxe Books, 2011) From i’s Poet in Residence: ‘I find that poetry helps to lower my stress levels’ This was such a gorgeous read. As someone who finds poetry intimidating, I really enjoyed the blend of poems prescribed for different emotional ailments with a bit of context from Sieghart about them, and how they apply to real life. This is mindful goodness; a worthy gift for you or any friend experiencing life’s ups and downs. Maybe not for the serious poetry fans, though. Dressed in a white coat and stethoscope, Alma says she was invited to appear as the Emergency Poet at “schools, hospitals and festivals all over the place, but I’m a middle-aged woman and I’m getting a bit old for driving around”. She first noticed the shop on Bishop’s Castle High Street two years ago. “It’s got all the original shelves, drawers, the oak counter; it’s beautiful and I thought: ‘Wow, that would make a fantastic poetry pharmacy!’ Two years later, we’ve done it and got a mortgage,” she says. The Poetry Pharmacy at the moment is mad, but normally I’m also pretty good at having a cup of tea in the garden, or going for a walk. What’s the last book you really loved?

For years now, Alma has been the Emergency Poet, travelling around British festivals and literary events in an old ambulance, and giving one-to-one consultations. Her ‘patients’ share what ails them, and she then prescribes a healing poem. For example, Elizabeth Bishop's One Art is placed in Self-Image and Self-Acceptance. In this heart it mainly lives in Love and Loss, though it spends time in Mental and Emotional Well-Being as well as three others. Of the seventy-four conditions, the one for which he prescribes it is Letting Go. It makes sense but so do dozens of others. But it had to be done somehow, there are no prescriptions without conditions. So I learned to stop trying to rewrite what isn't mine: to Let Go. Because poetry. Truly a marvellous collection ... There is balm for the soul, fire for the belly, a cooling compress for the fevered brow, solace for the wounded, an arm around the lonely shoulder - the whole collection is a matchless compound of hug, tonic and kiss' Stephen Fry In her forties, while recovering from an abusive relationship, she went to university to study creative writing, expressing her pain in poems that were eventually published in a collection, Dirty Laundry. Persian or Iranian people say: “We don’t need a pharmacy book, we have Hafez.” Written 700 years ago, their poems have depth, range and contemporary relevance. Poetry is crucial for continuity. We live in a world of terrifying immediacy and uncertainty – Donald Trump has just said he’d be happy to take out North Korea. It is hard to protect our fragile psyches from assault. There are no easy fixes, but that is why we turn to poetry. Pursuing truths is worthwhile: the cupboard you thought was full of snakes turns out to be full of dust.For someone coming from a different linguistic area, not all but many of the poets called on were a first acquaintance and so fresh, while many naturally are household names to the English speaking audience this anthology is serving in the first place (Siegfried Sassoon, Wendell Berry, Philip Larkin, Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heany, Derek Walcott, John Donne) – only the poems of Hafez, Rumi, Izumi Shikibu come in a translation. Despite the splendour of the greater part of the poems, the anthology left me slightly underwhelmed, because some of the poems tasted rather bland for me - not because of their content, which was often poignant enough, just their tone, cadence, musicality couldn’t stir me much aesthetically – I assume some more of them might grow on me on a next read. Deborah has been prescribing poems for many years. Before the Poetry Pharmacy opened, she travelled the country in a vintage ambulance and gave poetry consultations at schools and festivals. Now she has a dedicated consultation room at the shop, complete with velvet chaise longue. The Forward Book of Poetry 2020 brings together a selection of the best poetry published in the British Isles over the last year, including the winners of the 2019 Forward Prizes – and a foreword by jury chair Shahidha Bari. The first 45 minutes had me smiling ear-to-ear as I walked. That could have been due to the fact that William Sieghart tugged at my heartstrings by including “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Oscar Hammerstein II (the anthem of Liverpool Football Club) or it could have been due to the fact that they really did make ‘light’ of ‘heavy’ situations. His method was: stating the condition, and then prescribing the poem, by first explaining it in his own words and then reading it out loud.

Sieghart has chosen a great variety of poems in terms of time period and register. Rumi and Hafez share space with Wendy Cope and Maya Angelou. Of the 56 poems, I’d estimate that at least three-quarters are from the twentieth century or later. At times the selections are fairly obvious or clichéd (especially “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” for Bereavement), and the choice of short poems or excerpts seems to pander to short attention spans. So populist is the approach that Sieghart warns Keats is the hardest of all. I also thought there should have been a strict one poem per poet rule; several get two or even three entries. It was a way to express what I was feeling and helped me make sense of my fear and confusion at that time.” she says, adding that the consultations harness the power that poetry has and make it personal. “The time and care given to the ‘patient’ is invaluable, the very best tonic, something real and meaningful, never more so than in our present circumstances.” ‘There is everything to look forward to’ Today is National Poetry Day here in the UK, and there could be no better primer for reluctant poetry readers than William Sieghart’s The Poetry Pharmacy. Consider it the verse equivalent of Berthoud and Elderkin’s The Novel Cure: an accessible and inspirational guide that suggests the right piece at the right time to help heal a particular emotional condition.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.' We know about the death of the high street,” she says cheerfully. “And we know that poetry doesn’t sell. So here I am, opening a shop on the high street selling poetry, in a quiet little town in the middle of nowhere! It’s clearly a really stupid thing to do. But it seems to work.” Inside The Poetry Pharmacy. Pic courtesy Deborah Alma. There’s an exercise I do right at the beginning. I get the group to introduce themselves to each other by writing a couple of paragraphs – without using the letter E. Watch casting demonstrations in the foundry and be entertained by fire shows and a stilt walker before the spectacular 18-minute fireworks extravaganza begins at 7:45pm. They’re delighted. It was a shop at the top of the high street that had been closed down for 13 years, and it had become almost like an emblem of this little place with its shut-down shops. We have events here every weekend, and there’s a little coffee shop. It’s comfortable. People can sit and read and talk to each other, without feeling rushed. And they’ve been really supportive. We even have couple of volunteers who are helping out, because they want it to succeed. So why poetry, for you?