STRESS RELIEF: Poem a day keeps the doctor away

MANY of us have not picked up a poetry book since we left the classroom and – to be honest – considered it more of a pain than a pleasure even then. But why not take down that anthology gathering dust on the shelf and spend five minutes dipping into it?

You might be surprised by how much you enjoy the experience – and poetry can even have surprising benefits for your health, too. From nursery rhymes onwards, we absorb poetry from our very earliest days.

Children delight in stories that rhyme and find them astonishingly easy to learn – as any parent who’s tried skipping a verse or two at bedtime will attest. Poetry learnt in childhood will often remain with us all our lives, which is why it has been so successfully used in therapies for dementia patients.

Deborah Alma, who travels the country in a vintage ambulance dispensing poetry prescriptions as the Emergency Poet, has even worked with patients in care settings to create new works with them, which can be shared with family and care workers. 

She says: “It’s often wonderful to read these poems to the staff as this can give them an insight into the lives and experiences of people in their care that they might not have had the time or the opportunity to discover.”

A few lines from AA Milne, Robert Louis Stevenson or Lewis Carroll are enough to spark nostalgic pleasure, and it’s wonderful to introduce our children and grandchildren to old friends such as the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Jumblies or the motley menagerie that star in Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.

As our teachers never tired of telling us, there are great educational benefits to reading poetry. Poets delight in playing with language in a way that stretches our vocabulary. Studies have proved that challenging lines of classic poetry stimulate more brain activity than the same sentiments transcribed into pedestrian language.

Poetry, therefore, helps us to think in more complex and imaginative ways than simple prose. Recent neurological research has even discovered that listening to poetry stimulates parts of the brain that watching films or enjoying music did not, providing a fuller mental workout. 

Classic poetry is embedded so deep into our culture that references to it crop up in the most unexpected places, from film titles to popular songs.

A good knowledge of the canon ensures that you’ll always be in demand for quiz teams but it also enables you to spot and enjoy an endless web of references, from Shakespeare’s “darling buds of May” to the much-loved hymn Jerusalem, based on a poem by William Blake.

We are all far more knowledgeable about poetry than we give ourselves credit for. Some might argue that learning by rote is obsolete in our technological age in which we can, at any moment, reach out through cyberspace and grasp the words of a half-remembered poem.

However, committing poems to memory – another teachers’ favourite – builds up a mental store of the most beautiful and useful words in the language. It is certainly still a skill worth cultivating. 

Training the brain through learning verse can help improve our retention of knowledge but there are other benefits, more significant and more delightful, to learning poetry.

The words become your personal armoury against the slings and arrows of life, something to draw upon whether you’re coming to terms with an empty nest, enduring illness, or just fuming in a traffic jam.

Survivors of traumatic events, such as the hostage Terry Waite, recall the comfort offered by reciting poetry learned by heart during their darkest hours. Reciting a poem to yourself in the heat of anger can calm you down more effectively than counting to 10 – especially if you choose a silly verse or even a risqué limerick that will make you smile.

Our lives would be almost unrecognisable to the first readers of Shakespeare, Wordsworth or even Philip Larkin, but their words still strike a chord with us because our preoccupations remain so similar.

Poems can tell us universal truths about love, grief, family and faith, which is why we turn to them to speak for us at weddings and funerals.

The success of firms such as Candlestick Press, which publishes poetry pamphlets on themes including babies, sheep and kindness to be sent instead of greetings cards, shows how useful we still find poetry as communication. 

As readers, relating to the emotions expressed in poetry can offer us solace. They remind us that others have felt this way and so help to reduce feelings of isolation.

Reading fiction is a wonderful way to escape to imagined landscapes and absorb exotic experiences, and it gives us a valuable chance to flex our emotional and empathetic muscles.

Unlike a novel, most poems can be squeezed into a tea break, offering all the benefits of fiction in a concentrated hit. Life can be hectic and reading a poem gives us a moment to step off the treadmill.

It’s almost impossible to skim-read unfamiliar poetry, since the structure and language force you to pause, giving you time to tease out the meaning. In a world where we are always on the go, slowing down for a few minutes can leave you feeling recharged and boost your mood.

Dipping into a book rather than reading on screen can also provide a brief digital detox, as well as saving you from the reams of inaccurately transcribed poetry available online. Reciting gentle verses in your head can even act as a form of mindfulness and help to combat insomnia. 

Unhelpful worries can be swept away as you concentrate on the familiar words and rhythm. In this season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and unpredictable showers, a poem can whisk you off for a weather-proof woodland walk.

Poets have always been inspired by nature and verses about country churchyards, dancing daffodils and darkling thrushes can provide a mental gulp of wholesome fresh air.

Shakespeare displays his Warwickshire roots with the gorgeous accuracy of his lines on wild thyme and autumn leaves and the Romantics were moved to giddiness by sublime vistas.

When you can’t escape for a few moments of rural tranquillity in real life, a poem can be a magic carpet to take you there in imagination. Reading poetry can bring huge intellectual and mental benefits and boost your emotional health in the space of just a few minutes, and there’s something out there to appeal to everyone.

So, make a promise to yourself to read just one new poem. You may find that once you begin it’s impossible to stop – and poetry will become a new healthy habit.