Poetry is the perfect January tonic

Poets haven’t always gone for a dry January. So many of their biographies are hardly testaments to self-care, so why is poetry packed with the potential to be good for us? The words of the afflicted come in power-packed units stronger than anything you’ll pick off the shelves at Holland & Barrett. Self-reflection, mental stimulus and human connection are just a few of the benefits that poems can deliver. What is it with this artform that those who have suffered can find the right words to make the rest of us feel better?

Charles Bukowski lived and died an alcoholic, decrying "rivers and seas of beer… / beer is all there is". Yet the same poet was capable of the most optimistic and galvanising lines of poetry, writing: "There is light somewhere/it may not be much light but/it beats the darkness." From his own darkness, Bukowski created poetry that could offer light to others. Emily Dickinson lived a reclusive life and potentially suffered a debilitating illness, but from it she wrote: "I tell it gay to those who suffer now/They shall survive." Vladimir Mayakosvky lived in a personal hell, involving a failed ménage à trois, but he was also the de facto poet of the Soviet state, giving hope to the masses. His personal poems can be bleak, but his rallying calls for the betterment of society where – and still are – uplifting: "Citizens! Great joy! Glad tidings!" And let’s not forget that both John Donne and Frank O’Hara held conversations with the sun. The fact that neither of them wore sun cream at the time doesn’t mean that we should do the same. 

What [poets] bring back from their séances with extremity are the vapours that can wake readers from a closed state, quickening senses, probing us to question how we live – even prompting us to embrace new experiences 

Perhaps my favourite case is Arthur Hugh Clough, an overlooked Liverpool poet who lived with depression and out of it wrote the incredibly uplifting "Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth." Despite Clough’s personal anguish, the poem was quoted on radio by Winston Churchill (who had his own black dog) during the Blitz, offering solace to the nation:

"Say not the struggle nought availeth

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been, things remain."

Many poets have lived wanting to experience life in the round – which includes more than the odd buying of one (a round, that is) – striving to experience the complete gamut of emotions, because to capture that in language is their job, and poets live for the next poem. What they bring back from their séances with extremity are the vapours that can wake readers from a closed state, quickening senses, probing us to question how we live – even prompting us to embrace new experiences. Poets are translators of the opaque mysteries of life into crystalline language which can then be held by a reader, refracted in the light of the mind. 

The past few years have provided scientific proof of the benefits of reading, confirming what many have always known. NHS bodies have embraced social prescribing, investing in schemes to actively engage patients in reading, often in groups, as a step towards better health. Hundreds of communities now have "link workers" to help bridge the role of a GP with the wider offer that is available in the community, including reading groups. Organisations such as the Reading Agency and The Reader have been at the fore of showing the transformative power of this. Poetry offers an invitation to the "extreme present" (to quote poet C A Conrad), a release from past traumas or anxiety about the future. One of the keys to happiness is stepping outside of time, a movement that poetry delights in. 

With its shorter, more nimble feet, inviting connection and expansion, try reading a short poem before a workout and you’ll find your mind uncoupling from the old grooves of thought as you exercise your body. Once you feel the benefits, you’ll want to pass it on – which is great news for the young. The Literacy Trust has found that children who enjoy reading are three times more likely to have good mental wellbeing than children who don’t. And most children know the truth of poetry, one that many adults have forgotten – that it is a fun form of play. 

Poetry is not only something that publishers can benefit from the sale of; poems can activate new thinking, lubricating the dry salvages of repeated conversations. Try kicking off a creative meeting with a well-chosen poem and see how it bumps the collective thinking process from habitual tracks. If you’re exploring a certain theme, drop the National Poetry Library a line asking for poetry suggestions, old and new. Poems are dialogic by nature, always inviting a response. They are an extra member of your team when you need them – and they don’t need adding to the payroll. Try reading or listening to a poem a day on the commute to work, you’ll be surprised how often you find yourself telling a colleague about it. Of course, you might already be doing this, letting the light beat the darkness.