Poetic Medicine: An Instrument for Healing

A day of listening, creativity and healing as we allow words to flow through us

“Poetry is an act of peace”. – Pablo Neruda

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry”. ― Emily Dickinson

Due to the overwhelming response to our offering in June 2025, Mesa Refuge is excited to collaborate once again with the UCSF MERI Center for Education in Palliative Care to bring a day-long experiential writing/healing workshop to Mesa Refuge, led by alum Redwing Keyssar, RN and Mike Rabow, MD. 

The practice of “poem making” offers a means to express the metaphors and meaning of the suffering we experience in ourselves and bear witness to in others. Poetry can be a salve for the heart and soul. It is a way of speaking what is true in our hearts and is often difficult to access without a creative spark.  

Listening to and writing poetry can be a powerful element in the healing process for those who suffer serious illness, those who work with people with serious illness and anyone who faces loss and grief. Poem-making is an act of self-care, using creativity as a source of resiliency

Writing poetry in community is like attending a meditation retreat. The instruction for most beginners when learning to meditate is to simply bring oneself back to the breath, each time the mind wanders. In poem-making, the instruction is to bring oneself back to the heart and along with a deep breath, see if one can open a little bit wider. When we witness each other in this process, in a circle of open-heartedness, something magical happens!

“Poetic Medicine” is a term coined by the poet and teacher John Fox, who wrote the seminal text in 1997: “Poetic Medicine; The Healing Art of Poem-Making.”

In the beginning of Fox’s book he states:

 “Poetry is a natural medicine; it is like a homeopathic tincture derived from the stuff of life itself—your experience…Poetry provides guidance, revealing what you did not know you knew before you wrote or read thet poem. This moment of surprising yourself with your own words of wisdom or of being surprised by the poems of others is at the heart of poetry as healer.”

Cost: sliding scale $75-$150; some scholarships available (email [email protected])

Coffee/tea/snacks provided, bring your own lunch.

REGISTER HERE

Redwing Keyssar, RN, author, poet, Mesa alum and Marion Weber Healing Arts Fellow, has been leading poetic medicine workshops since 2020, supporting over 5000 people internationally. She has traversed an amazing 30+ year journey in the healing arts/healthcare, with  experience in oncology, critical care, hospice and palliative care. Redwing is an educator, midwife to the dying, author, poet, national presenter and frequent contributor to public issues about palliative care. Redwing is currently the Director of Patient and Caregiver Education at the MERI Center for Education in Palliative Care at UCSF/Mt. Zion. Her professional career includes being the  Clinical Director at Zen Hospice Project and the Director of Palliative Care and Nursing at Jewish Family and Children’s Services from 2007-2018.  She is a founder and adjunct faculty member of the California State University Shiley/Haynes Institute of Palliative Care.  Redwing is the author of an award-winning book, Last Acts of Kindness; Lessons for the Living from the Bedsides of the Dying and the recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Humanities Award.

Michael W. Rabow, MD, is the Helen Diller Family Chair in Palliative Care and Professor of Clinical Medicine and Urology at UCSF.  He is the Associate Chief of Education & Mentoring in the Division of Palliative Medicine, and the Medical Director of Palliative Care at UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Board-certified in internal medicine and hospice/palliative care, Dr. Rabow directs a leading outpatient palliative care program.  In addition, Dr. Rabow is a member of UCSF’s Academy of Medical Educators and is the Founding Director of the MERI Center for Education in Palliative Care at UCSF/Mount Zion. Dr. Rabow was the recipient of the AAHPM PDIA National Palliative Care Leadership Award, Soros PDIA Award, Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award, and was recognized as a Visionary in Palliative Care by AAHPM.