Transition, transformation and the art of losing: Some uses of poetry in hospice care for the terminally ill

Abstract

What lessons for psychotherapy can be drawn from the enjoyment and sustenance we find in the use of literature? This paper looks back on a recent creative writing project undertaken with patients in a hospice day centre, and suggested reasons why the patients found this activity not only enjoyable but also therapeutic. Both the hospice as an institution and the poetic form are defined in terms of a transitional space. The article shows how the act of reading and writing poetry places a value for patients on not knowing at a time when the plain hard facts of terminal illness loom large. The author describes a practical way of engaging with poetry in this context, and uses clinical material to describe how the literary arts can provide a transformational object, and a point of inspiration, that may help patients to negotiate the changes brought about by their illness.