Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Host: Sarah Peyton interviews Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. The Trauma-Healing Power of Poetry

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Guest Host: Sarah Peyton interviews Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. The Trauma-Healing Power of Poetry · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
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  Speaker 1: Therapist podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
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  Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
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  Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
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  Speaker 1: you in all the while keeping the heart of this
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  Speaker 1: podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
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  Speaker 2: Hello everyone, my name is Sarah Peyton, and I am
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  Speaker 2: the author of Your Resion it Self and other books.
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  Speaker 2: And I am today's guest host on The Trauma Therapist
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  Speaker 2: and I have invited Rosemary What Told the Trauma to
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  Speaker 2: be my guest today. And I'm very excited because Rosemary
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  Speaker 2: is a poet and we're going to be talking about
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  Speaker 2: trauma and poetry and how poetry really changes us and
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  Speaker 2: helps us live through difficult things. I'm going to read
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  Speaker 2: Rosemary's bio now. Rosemary is a poet, teacher, speaker, writing facilitator,
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  Speaker 2: and poet Laureate of Evermore. Her poems have appeared on
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  Speaker 2: a Prairie Home Companion, BBS News Hour, OH Magazine, American
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  Speaker 2: Life in Poetry, Washington Post's Book Club, and Carnegie Hall Stage.
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  Speaker 2: Her newest book is The Unfolding and I was just
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  Speaker 2: showing it to my mother in law this morning. Her
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  Speaker 2: one word mantra is a just and her website is
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  Speaker 2: one word wordwoman dot com. Rosemary. Hello, good morning. I'm
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  Speaker 2: very glad to be with you today.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning, sir. I'm delighted to be with you too.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm not sure if other people are able to
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  Speaker 3: see what I see, but I can see that you're
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  Speaker 3: surrounded by musical instruments and paintings where you're sitting. It's
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  Speaker 3: a beautiful thing to see.
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  Speaker 2: Well, thank you here. Lichella does help me to survive
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  Speaker 2: these days. I find that if I'm very upset and
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  Speaker 2: I play it and it's vibrating, I don't play very well,
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  Speaker 2: by the way.
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  Speaker 3: But even badly, I hold a cell out to me.
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  Speaker 2: And after I've played for fifteen or twenty minutes, my
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  Speaker 2: nervous system gets reregulated. Which is one of the things
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  Speaker 2: that we're here to talk about. Is we're here to
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  Speaker 2: talk about the convergence of what trauma does to bodies
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  Speaker 2: and what poetry does to bodies. So I was very
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  Speaker 2: excited this year when we got to invite you to
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  Speaker 2: be our summit spoke, our summit poet laureate for the
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  Speaker 2: Resonance Summit, which happens in April this year. And I
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  Speaker 2: was so excited to learn that you had always had
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  Speaker 2: the conviction that poetry changes our brains, but that nobody
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  Speaker 2: had ever brought the research forward at all about it
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  Speaker 2: for you, and I was able to send you my books.
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  Speaker 2: I was very excited about this. But will you say
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  Speaker 2: a few words about your kind of just the felt
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  Speaker 2: sense of what happens for people when they find a
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  Speaker 2: poem that really speaks to them in traumatic experience. And
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  Speaker 2: so you mean as reading a poem or writing whatever
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  Speaker 2: comes to you is fine, Okay, Well, I think maybe
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  Speaker 2: I'll just start with just reading a poem. Sometimes we
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  Speaker 2: find a poem that speaks to where we are. My
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  Speaker 2: own experience of this, Sarah, is that when I feel
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  Speaker 2: met that way, when I feel somehow seen by that poem,
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  Speaker 2: as if this person has also had an experience that's
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  Speaker 2: obviously different from mine, but similar enough that they seem
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  Speaker 2: to touch the truth of whatever my experience is. There's
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  Speaker 2: this it's kind of a to use the name of
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  Speaker 2: your summit. There's this full body resonance that happens. Then
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  Speaker 2: this feeling of like I'm being struck like a bell,
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  Speaker 2: like it's a very embodied sensation, not just the mind
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  Speaker 2: saying yes, but like the whole body rising up to
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  Speaker 2: say yes.
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  Speaker 3: That's what it feels like. And there's something so powerful, vulnerable, generous.
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  Speaker 3: I can even say loving about that moment when we
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  Speaker 3: feel that scene by art and bring that into our lives.
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  Speaker 3: I'm thinking now of after my son Finn died in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, I read a short poem by Gregory
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  Speaker 3: Orr that begins this way not to make loss beautiful,
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  Speaker 3: but to make the place where beauty starts, where the
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  Speaker 3: heart understands for the first time the nature of its journey.
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  Speaker 3: And I remember how those words met me exactly where
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  Speaker 3: I needed to be met, because I knew that loss
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  Speaker 3: wasn't beautiful. I knew my experience of it was horrifying
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  Speaker 3: and terrible, and it hurt and it was well, it
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  Speaker 3: was traumatic and so and I was also experiencing this
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  Speaker 3: other thing that involved so much beauty, that involved revelation
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  Speaker 3: and epiphany and astonishment and gratefulness and awe and wonder
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  Speaker 3: and experiencing them at the same time. And for someone
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  Speaker 3: else then to put into words, this is what it's
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  Speaker 3: like to have these two experiences at the same time.
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  Speaker 3: Not to make loss beautiful, no, but to make it
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  Speaker 3: the place where beauty starts. And just for someone to
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  Speaker 3: touch that paradox allowed me to open also and feel
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  Speaker 3: more alive with it.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things we talk about when we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about healing trauma, healing emotional trauma with an emphasis on language,
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  Speaker 2: is that it's really important to go into a particular moment.
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  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that's really striking me
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  Speaker 2: about your experience with Gregory Or's poem is that you
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  Speaker 2: should go right into a moment that was struggling to
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  Speaker 2: be born or spoken within you, that someone else was
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  Speaker 2: able to give words to. So that's the first thing
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  Speaker 2: that strikes me about the specificity of observation. That's an
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  Speaker 2: inherent part of poetry that invites us into a particular
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  Speaker 2: moment and a particular state of being. Another thing that
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  Speaker 2: you spoke to here that seems important to me is accompaniment.
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  Speaker 2: That what calms the human brain more than anything else
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  Speaker 2: in the world is having somebody else be able to
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  Speaker 2: walk with us. And I have a friend in Ireland
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  Speaker 2: who said that that poets and songwriters were the first
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  Speaker 2: psychotherapists that that we that that that songs and poetry
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  Speaker 2: have always carried us to places even before there was
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  Speaker 2: the art of psychotherapy, the art of therapy. And then yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there was another thing that was tickling me. But I'd
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  Speaker 2: love to take us into a particular poem of yours.
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  Speaker 2: If you're willing that that that catches so much of
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  Speaker 2: of our conversation and puts it in a poem, would
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  Speaker 2: you be willing to read your poem from the inside for.
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  Speaker 3: Us, Yes, thank you, And I'll just say about it.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe one little thing to go back to your question
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  Speaker 3: before about poetry. Maybe this to me is an example
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  Speaker 3: then of how writing a poem can be. This also
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  Speaker 3: very beautiful way that we can show up for trauma,
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  Speaker 3: not just to read a poem, but then to write
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  Speaker 3: one of our own, and how it allows us to
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  Speaker 3: be witnesses of our own lives, which is something I
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  Speaker 3: know you talk about in your resonance self. This is
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  Speaker 3: from the inside. In these days when the torrents of
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  Speaker 3: grief flood deep, when sorrow pulls like blood on the floor,
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  Speaker 3: in these days when I can do nothing but meet
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  Speaker 3: this moment and I am too spent to say hello,
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  Speaker 3: Love comes to meet me where I am. It holds
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  Speaker 3: me while I cry, It cradles me where I sit,
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  Speaker 3: It steps with me as I walk. There was at
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  Speaker 3: first a moment when I tried to push it away.
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  Speaker 3: Alarmed by this onslaught of love too much, I protested,
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  Speaker 3: arms up in resistance. But love obliterated my no. It
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  Speaker 3: moved in to hold me from the inside, slipped into
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  Speaker 3: my tissue, my bones. It infused itself into each tiny cell,
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  Speaker 3: each organelle, and made inside me a home. Since that moment,
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  Speaker 3: I am never alone. Now. It is love that moves
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  Speaker 3: me my hand, Love that shapes each word, Love that
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  Speaker 3: helps me rise, Love that pours the tea, Love that
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  Speaker 3: wakes with me in the middle of the night. Autonomic
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  Speaker 3: love that makes the heart beat, Autonomic love that makes
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  Speaker 3: the lungs breathe. Autonomic love that meets the impossible grief
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  Speaker 3: and surrounds it with an impossible grace. Love that grips
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  Speaker 3: me around the heart as if to save me from drowning.
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  Speaker 3: Love that murmurs again and again, I have got you, sweetheart,
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  Speaker 3: I have got you.
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  Speaker 2: It makes me cry, makes me cry every time I
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  Speaker 2: read it for glasses, and I weep. It's like a
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  Speaker 2: compression of the entire book you're res in itself.
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  Speaker 3: Into into a beautiful poem.
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  Speaker 2: Of invitation to self, compassion in the difficulties of living
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  Speaker 2: in this and this life, this planet, loving people, losing people. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I'm so touched by mentioning your son and by the
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  Speaker 2: by the shared experience of losing a son, because I
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  Speaker 2: lost my son some seven or eight years ago now
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  Speaker 2: and and this, this poem touches me in the places
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  Speaker 2: where he has gone and where I get to have
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  Speaker 2: some warmth for myself.
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  Speaker 4: Even so, so, it's just it feels really important to
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  Speaker 4: me that we get to be together, that we get
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  Speaker 4: to name impossi about grief, that we get to invite
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  Speaker 4: impossible grace.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, what a miracle.
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  Speaker 5: So so where do I want to go now with
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  Speaker 5: our few moments. I think what I want to talk about.
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  Speaker 2: Is the the way that poetry and the experience of words.
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  Speaker 1: Oh.
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  Speaker 2: This takes me to Ian Migilchrist who is the author
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  Speaker 2: of The Master and his Emissary, which is an extraordinary
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  Speaker 2: book about the neuroscience of the lateralization of the brain.
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  Speaker 2: That we have these two hemispheres, that one of them
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  Speaker 2: is particularly devoted to speech to the left hemisphere, and
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  Speaker 2: that this hemisphere is particularly devoted to speech, but it's
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  Speaker 2: also the hemisphere that strips meaning from the world so
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  Speaker 2: that we can function efficiently and effectively and take action
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  Speaker 2: and track what needs to be done next. And then
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  Speaker 2: we've got this other hemisphere that is much less worded,
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  Speaker 2: but that is touched. We can see on fMRIs that
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  Speaker 2: when poetry is read that it touches and lights up
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  Speaker 2: the part of the brain that's devoted to words, but
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  Speaker 2: is not the language carrier, but rather the part that's
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  Speaker 2: devoted to meaning. And in this part of the brain
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  Speaker 2: words I have this image of words falling like pebbles
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  Speaker 2: into a pool and us being able to see these
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  Speaker 2: incredible ripples moving out from the words, from the words
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  Speaker 2: that are poured, just like the tea that is poured
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  Speaker 2: by love. We get to see the impact, the effect,
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  Speaker 2: the consequence, the organization that gets invited. When you were
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  Speaker 2: speaking about the gregory or poem and about that moment
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  Speaker 2: of coherent coalescing of meaning, that his words took something
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  Speaker 2: that was struggling to be born within you and got
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  Speaker 2: to be born. This is what Ian Migilchers speaks about.
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  Speaker 2: He says, it's very important to find language for things
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  Speaker 2: that allows the return to the pool. Like instead of reaching.
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  Speaker 6: In and grabbing those petals that fell fell and pulling
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  Speaker 6: them ount and drying them off and putting them over here,
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  Speaker 6: Instead the pebbles that fall into the pool to stay
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  Speaker 6: in the pool, and the ripples continue to kind of
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  Speaker 6: it's almost like they eminate even after the falling.
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  Speaker 2: There are still ripples coming from these words. How are
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  Speaker 2: you doing over there?
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  Speaker 3: What's happening for you? I'm thinking about this, that the
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  Speaker 3: pebbles get to stay there, right, This is a beautiful metaphor, Sarah,
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  Speaker 3: And I think this is what I know about poetry
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  Speaker 3: is that it doesn't fix anything. And that's not what
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  Speaker 3: it's for. It isn't there to fix, right. It's not
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  Speaker 3: there to take the pebble out and dry it off again.
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  Speaker 3: It's not there to make things go back to the
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  Speaker 3: way they used to be. It's a way for us
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  Speaker 3: to meet the world as it is, again and again
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  Speaker 3: and again. But it changes the way we meet the world,
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  Speaker 3: and in doing this it changes the world. But it
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  Speaker 3: just that difference is so important to me. It doesn't
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  Speaker 3: change the world, it changes the way we meet it.
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  Speaker 3: So this bit of agency, this little bit of practice
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  Speaker 3: this little bit of or even dare I say play I?
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  Speaker 3: Dare I dare say play right? To know that that,
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  Speaker 3: to to bring language to our experience, to wonder? Is
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  Speaker 3: this what I'm trying to say, is this is this
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  Speaker 3: the right word?
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  Speaker 7: Was it like this?
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  Speaker 3: To let ourselves be wrestled by that, To know that
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  Speaker 3: we'll never get it right, that there will be infinite
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  Speaker 3: ways to get it right. This is this is the
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  Speaker 3: gift of poetry. To meeting trauma right is not to
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  Speaker 3: fix it, but to open us to to bring curiosity
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  Speaker 3: to a difficult moment, to bring wonder to despair, not
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  Speaker 3: to take over the despair, not to dispel the despair,
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  Speaker 3: but to meet it also with wonder, with curiosity. And
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  Speaker 3: now that the despair isn't everything anymore.
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  Speaker 2: That you had meant before we got on the recording,
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  Speaker 2: that somebody had written to you and said, please let
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  Speaker 2: me know when you figure out how to get.
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  Speaker 3: Those words, how to get out of despair. Well, and
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  Speaker 3: I think this is it too. Is that poetry loves paradox,
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  Speaker 3: that Gregory or poem or this poem too. You know,
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  Speaker 3: it's impossible grief and the impossible grace. And now at
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  Speaker 3: the same moment they're here, and poems because they love paradox,
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  Speaker 3: because life loves paradox. Rite in a poem, all the
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  Speaker 3: poem wants to do is touch what does it be alive?
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  Speaker 3: Just touch that truth. The more I play with poetry myself,
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  Speaker 3: the more available I am to meeting embracing paradox, not
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  Speaker 3: just on a page, right, but in any given moment.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that I was just thinking about this
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  Speaker 3: this morning, that because every time we sit down to
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  Speaker 3: a blank, it's blank, there's nothing there, that in a way,
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  Speaker 3: a poetry practice is a willingness to show up with
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  Speaker 3: what isn't there, with what we don't know yet, with
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  Speaker 3: what is uncertain, and we get to develop this fluency
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  Speaker 3: with meeting uncertainty, with meeting potential, infinite potential, again and
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  Speaker 3: again and again and again. The more you do that
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  Speaker 3: on a page, of course, it's going to change how
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  Speaker 3: you meet every other moment, even the most difficult moments.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, thank you, jos May. We are getting close to
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  Speaker 2: the end of our time. So I wanted to let
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  Speaker 2: people know about some of the resources that are available
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  Speaker 2: for folks from you. And one of the things is
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  Speaker 2: that if you go to Rosemary's website wordwoman dot com.
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  Speaker 2: You'll be able to sign up for a daily post
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  Speaker 2: poetry gift that comes out every morning. It's been uh
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  Speaker 2: uh since I discovered that you had this. I've been
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  Speaker 2: receiving your poems like gifts falling into my breakfast to
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  Speaker 2: become my tradition. And so I invite others also to
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  Speaker 2: take advantage of this. And then Rosemary's latest book is
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  Speaker 2: called The Unfolding, and then you'll be able to find
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  Speaker 2: that she does all kinds of interesting readings and classes
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  Speaker 2: and things. So Rosemary, thank you so much for being
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  Speaker 2: my guest and for talking about this precious and beautiful
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  Speaker 2: subject with me.
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  Speaker 7: Thank you, Sarah the Doom of s