Letter to the editor: The power of poetry

OPINION:

The U.S. suicide rate is the highest it has been since 1941. One in five high school students has seriously considered suicide in the past year and half of Americans say they regularly feel lonely.

As we search for answers, we are overlooking one of the cheapest prevention tools available: poetry.

A recent peer-reviewed study in the journal Military Medicine followed veterans who met virtually once a month for a year to read poetry together and write their own. One of the veterans had seriously considered suicide in the month before joining. By the end of the year, researchers found a measurable drop in suicidal thinking.

The finding fits a growing body of evidence. In her new book, “Art Cure,” Daisy Fancourt, who directs the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health, draws together decades of research showing that engaging with the arts lowers depression, stress and pain.

I have seen this firsthand. Since founding, in 2010, an arts program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that later became the nonprofit Mission Belonging, I have led hundreds of veterans through writing workshops.

One former sniper, whose hypervigilance kept him seated against the wall, eventually joined us at the table. Later, he read a poem about his PTSD at a public reading.

A former combat medic who had relied on alcohol to cope with her memories of Afghanistan began turning to her journal instead.

Many people assume that veteran suicide stems from combat-related trauma. Yet Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) data shows that most service members who die by suicide had either not recently deployed or never deployed at all.

What I see is quieter and goes far beyond the military: the deep human need for connection and purpose. Writing together people a reason to show up, a way to say something true and a room willing to listen.

None of this replaces clinical care. But creative expression belongs in our suicide prevention toolkit. Policymakers and the VA should invest in programs that rebuild community this way. Sometimes what a person needs most is a place to be heard.

SEEMA REZA

Founder, Mission Belonging

Bethesda, Maryland