Episode #6
Poetry as emotional alchemy
In this episode Jacky Power shares three practical ways poetry can shift mood, process change, and make sense of big life transitions. Inspired by a conversation between Claire Fitzsimmons and Deborah Alma on A Thought I Kept, this episode explores how poems can be both something we read and something we write to help us feel differently.We discuss how a poem can create collective feeling, why humor can interrupt a spiral of overwhelm, and how playful writing can hold grief and hope at the same time. Key topics In this episode: Jacky explains why Deb Alma’s idea behind the Poetry Pharmacy resonated so strongly, especially the belief that poems can change how we feel. She describes using Danusha Laméris’s Small Kindnesses in a local poetry group, where reading about tiny acts of care helped soften a grumpy winter mood and sparked gratitude. Jacky’s first technique is writing a story-poem in the third person, based on Patrick Carnes’s idea from Betrayal Bonds , to create emotional distance and see your own story with more compassion. Her poem Once Upon a Time uses a fairy-tale frame to talk about dismantling old narratives, letting go of self-censorship, and moving forward without needing everything to be factually literal. She emphasises that poetry does not have to be “true” in a literal sense to be emotionally true, and that suspending self-judgment can open up new meaning. Her second technique is using humour to break a “despair magnet” mindset, where one worry leads to another until everything feels overwhelming. She shares a deliberately absurd to-do list poem to show how exaggeration and silliness can restore perspective when ordinary responsibilities feel endless. Her third technique is writing through transition and grief, using recent experiences of children moving out of the house as a prompt for poems that begin sentimental and then shift into lightness. Across all three examples, Jacky highlights poetry as a tool for holding two truths at once, such as grief and pride, fear and faith, or loss and hope. Timestamps 00:00 - Why poems can change mood and meaning 01:02 - How a poem can create shared feeling in a group 01:23 - Reading Small Kindnesses and the power of tiny acts 02:53 - Poetry as a tool for making meaning from experience 03:13 - Technique one: writing your story as a fairy tale 04:18 - Getting unstuck when you do not know what to write 05:03 - Once Upon a Time and the collapse of old narratives 06:57 - Why the poem is really about hope and rebuilding 08:15 - Letting go of self-censorship and literal thinking 09:23 - Holding faith and fear at the same time 10:22 - Technique two: escaping the “despair magnet” 11:36 - A silly to-do list poem to interrupt overwhelm 12:51 - Using absurdity to get perspective on real stress 13:54 - Why autonomy matters in changing your mood 14:23 - Technique three: writing through children leaving home 15:09 - Sentimental writing and the ache of transition 16:56 - Moving from grief into humor and release 17:34 - Using poems to make space for both loss and hope 18:13 - Closing thoughts and listener invitation Useful links: A thought I kept podcast with Claire Fitzsimmons and guest Deborah Alma
