Kolkata/IBNS: Healing Words, a Kolkata based team of poets, performing artists and mental health professionals, has undertaken a project where they are leveraging poetry as one of the instruments of healing, of comforting troubled minds.

An effort which synchronises with the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) stated view to ‘deepen the value given to mental health by individuals, communities and governments; and matching that value with commitment, engagement and investment by all stakeholders, across all sectors’.

Drawing inspiration from William Sieghart’s anthology of poems titled ‘The Poetry Pharmacy’, Healing Words has set up a collaborative space where they interact with each other to create prescriptive poetry for troubled minds.

Recently, at a workshop conducted by Rantideb Mukherjee, Barnamala Roy, Ayesha Begum and Arindam Lahiri, along with psychologist Nilanjana Chatterjee, the team composed a series of poems on the subject.

The members discussed select responses sent to them by a range of people who have put their faith in the power of poetry to heal their mental anguishes, said Healing Words in a note.

Exclusive poems were crafted for the responders based on the consultant psychologist’s insights on the problems.

At Healing Word’s first of a series of poetry clinics, actor and voice artist Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee will be in conversation with Nilanjana Chatterjee (consultant psychologist and founder of Anusharan Mental Health Wellness Clinic & Research Centre) and will also read out the poems for the audience.

The event will be held at Surfire Coastal Café in south Kolkata at 4pm on March 10, 2024.

Note: The programme is open to all but admission will be on a first come first served basis as seating is limited.