Ekphrastic
The Poetry Within Us: Unlocking the Human Mind Through Verse
It started with a whisper. â âNot from another person, but from withinâthe kind of whisper that stirs at the edge of sleep, that makes you pause mid-step and wonder if youâve forgotten something vital. For Maya, a neuroscience student drowning in textbooks and lab reports, that whisper came on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. â âShe had spent the past four years immersed in factsâstudying neurons, brain scans, dopamine pathways. Everything had to be measurable, repeatable, explainable. Yet, despite her academic success, she felt detached from herself, like a satellite orbiting her own life. â âThen came the elective course: The Psychology of Poetry. She enrolled reluctantly, needing the credits, expecting little more than historical analysis and a few stanzas of Shakespeare. â âWhat she didnât expect was to cry in class. â âThe poem was âHaving a Coke with Youâ by Frank OâHara. The professor read it aloudâgently, deliberately, with reverence. Maya didnât understand why her chest tightened or why her eyes stung. She had never met the poet, had never experienced his world, but somehow, in those lines, she felt seen. â âThat was the moment everything changed. â â â--- â âThe human brain, Maya would later learn, doesnât distinguish sharply between real and imagined emotion. When you read a poem that evokes sadness, joy, or awe, your brain often responds as if youâre living the experience. The same neural circuits activateâthe limbic system lights up, oxytocin is released, and connections strengthen. â âPoetry, she realized, was a neurological symphony. â âAnd yet, it was more than chemistry. It was a bridge. â âIn class, students shared poems that had shaped them. One read about their fatherâs death; another about coming out. A quiet classmate, who never spoke during biology lectures, recited a piece they had written about anxietyâeach metaphor a map to a place theyâd never shown anyone. For the first time, Maya understood the quiet power of shared vulnerability. â âPoetry didnât just unlock the mind. It softened it. â â â--- â âMaya began writing her own verses. At first, they were clumsy and overly structured, like her lab reports. But slowly, the lines loosened. Rhyme gave way to rhythm. She wrote about her motherâs silence, her childhood fear of thunderstorms, the pressure to be âsmartâ and composed. â âEach poem was a key, unlocking memories she hadnât realized were sealed away. â âMore importantly, it made her a better friend, sister, and researcher. She started noticing emotional subtleties in conversations, listening not just for content but for cadence, for pauses, for what went unsaid. Her empathy deepened, and so did her curiosityânot just about how the brain worked, but about how it felt to be alive. â â â--- â âScientific studies began to echo what Maya felt intuitively. A 2023 research article revealed that reading and writing poetry could significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially in adolescents. Another found that poetic language activated regions of the brain associated with reward and memory more intensely than ordinary speech. â âEven patients with dementia, when exposed to familiar poems, displayed improved communication and mood. Poetry, it turned out, could tap into neural pathways long after others had deteriorated. â âMaya started volunteering at a memory care center, reading poems to elderly residents. One woman, who rarely spoke, began reciting lines of Emily Dickinson, her voice frail but steady. For a moment, her eyes sparkled with recognition, as if time had folded in on itself and brought her home. â âIt was more than therapy. It was resurrection. â â â--- â âYears later, with a PhD in neuroscience and a poetry collection published, Maya stood at a TEDx stage. Her talk was titled âThe Poetry Within Us: Unlocking the Human Mind Through Verse.â â âShe spoke not just of neurons and scans, but of silence broken by verse, of people finding their voices, of science meeting soul. She ended with her favorite line from Mary Oliver: â â> âTell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?â â â â âAnd then she answered, in a quiet voice: â ââTo listen. To write. To feel. To remind others that within every brainâno matter how scarred or silentâthere lives a poem waiting to be heard.â â â â--- â âIn a world obsessed with speed, productivity, and logic, poetry reminds us to slow down, to sit with discomfort, to find beauty in ambiguity. It sharpens cognition, enhances emotional literacy, and deepens connection. â âThe poetry within us is not a luxury. It is a necessity. â âAnd when we unlock it, we unlock each other.
By Muhammad Saad 2 months ago in Poets
Where the Quiet Words Bloom
Where the Quiet Words Bloom A Story of Finding Hope Through Poetry Mira had always believed that poetry lived inside everyoneâhidden in the pauses between thoughts, in the soft sighs at the end of long days, and in the small moments that the world rushed past. Yet she herself hadnât written a single line in months. Her notebook sat untouched on her desk, its pages blank, mirroring the silence she felt within.
By Muhammad Saad 2 months ago in Poets
The Voices That Paint the Air
In a small town where the nights felt longer than the days, there stood an old community hall that many people had stopped visiting over the years. It had once been a center of laughter, celebrations, and shared dreams. But slowly, as life became busy and routines became heavier, fewer feet crossed its creaking wooden floor.
By Muhammad Saad 2 months ago in Poets
US military planning for divided Gaza with âgreen zoneâ secured by international and Israeli troops
The US is planning for the long-term division of Gaza into a âgreen zoneâ under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a âred zoneâ to be left in ruins.
By AHMED KAZEKA2 months ago in Poets
