Going Forward Together: Reflective Poetry as a Catalyst for Collective Action

Reflections from The Good Listening Project at the NCFR Annual Conference 2025

By Yvette Perry, PhD
Listener Poet & Health Equity Programs Lead

National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference
Baltimore, MD
November 22, 2025

The Good Listening Project facilitated the closing session of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland last November. Yvette Perry, Listener Poet and Health Equity Programs Lead, led the session: “Going Forward Together: Reflective Poetry as a Catalyst for Collective Action.”

This interactive and restorative session guided conference attendees in meaning-making at the close of the conference—honoring what had been learned and transforming shared insights into creative expressions and actionable commitments. Yvette integrated poetry performance into a journey that prompted participants to consider how the family experiences guiding NCFR members research, education, clinical, and service activities can be viewed as stories; how these stories of families can reveal systemic fault lines due to inequities in the contexts in which families live; and how these fault lines can, for family professionals, spark commitments and re-commitments to the important work that they do.

The TGLP poems performed during this session related to the conference theme, Power, Privilege, and Difference: Lived Experiences of Changing Families and Societies and served as a portal for conference participants’ reflections on their learning as they prepared to return home to contexts that may be challenging in these times. Participants reacted to these poems through guided dialogue and collaborative writing aimed at deepening listening, fostering relational understanding, and reconnecting to the collective vision of the National Council on Family Relations of helping every family thrive.

Featured Poems:

"Growth Phase" by Mindy Shah, Listener Poet

"Dinner" by Zina Mercil, Listener Poet

"American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree" by Yvette Perry, Listener Poet

"enough" by Yvette Perry, Listener Poet

"Variant" by Yvette Perry, Listener Poet

"In the River You May Find Yourself" by Yvette Perry, Listener Poet

"The Shift" by Chidube Nkiruka, Listener Poet

"Walk With Me" by Elizabeth Pringle, Listener Poet

Our Poems

Growth Phase

As a hospice doc, he thought about talking of death and dying. And then he thought about talking of the pandemic. He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

She was a caregiver for the past two years of her husband, since his Stage IV cancer diagnosis, which she described as the hardest period of her life. This was significant as she had experienced much grief and loss in her life already, including the sudden death of her father, yet “grief with your partner sits heavier and harder.”

American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

"I already had a mistrust of the healthcare system," he said. At first, he wanted to attempt to treat himself using home remedies. But he was led to innovative medical treatments by a caring Black female physician. "I'm about 85% now. I'll take that. It will be another year before I'm considered cancer-free."

enough

This nurse was considering leaving a position where she spent many years due to issues she experienced and witnessed at her hospital. Even though she worked there and was known to the healthcare providers, she experienced repeated incidents of disrespect and substandard care at the hands of her colleagues.

Variant

He noted that many of the people he worked with–mostly from communities underserved by the healthcare system–had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. "It's as if they need to become a new variant of themselves."

In the River You May Find Yourself

"What I've been thinking a lot about lately is hard to put into words," said this palliative care physician. At first she said this had to do with boundaries between herself as a physician and the patients and families she cared for–but she noted that this was perhaps not a precise enough word.

The Shift

Throughout her 25 years with the American Cancer Society, her “why” has evolved. She believes that most of those who have connected with ACS began with a personal connection, but then, according to her, “you evolve, and you shift.”

Walk With Me

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients. When she and her husband lived in New Jersey, she answered an ad in a newspaper for the American Cancer Society. Her father-in-law’s struggle with leukemia made the work personal: “Maybe this is my calling.”

Going Forward Together: Reflective Poetry as a Catalyst for Collective Action

Reflections from The Good Listening Project at the NCFR Annual Conference 2025

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