This Healing Place

Origin Story

Instead of the usual Listener Poet format – listening to one person’s story and responding with a framing narrative and custom poem – I was invited to create a group poem for forty participants at the Arts in Healing luncheon, hosted by the Inova Health Foundation in partnership with the board. I had just thirty minutes to gather the voices and reflections of the assembled group.

The event opened on the balcony with a moment of shared resonance: singers from the Wolf Trap Opera Workshop lifted their voices in a powerful invocation, inviting us into connection. From there, we transitioned into the Life with Cancer meeting room, where the delicate sound of harp music welcomed us into a more intimate, reflective space.

I moved through the room, joining conversations already in progress and posing a few open-ended questions about the relationship between the arts and healing, the mission of Schar, and personal experiences of healing. One by one, people began offering words, phrases, memories – stories of how the arts were essential for health and healing. What began as dialogue soon deepened into a shared expression of meaning and resilience.

After half an hour, I had gathered enough language, imagery, and insight to begin shaping the poem. I slipped away to a quiet room, where I sifted through the threads of what had been shared and wove them into a final poem. I read the poem aloud at the close of the luncheon – a reflection of the community’s stories and a testament to the healing power of art.

Elizabeth Pringle, Listener Poet
Group Listener Poet Session
June 2025

If you are interested in commissioning a group poem like this one for your organization, please reach out to us here to learn more.

By Elizabeth Pringle, Listener Poet

Oh, it shines bright
And asks your heart
not your head
to be present
Welcomes you to
follow the awe
that place opened by art and song
the soaring on Summertime
floating in Venice
everything in its time

This 6th sense
That frees the mind
from the driving wheels of stress
Trust that knowing, and your feelings, to a letting go
Take a full breath
And let your fearful heart slow to calm

Here, people are flocking here
Walking into this place
to an embrace
That holds you so you can
stop your crazy mind
Releases you
to somewhere else
Inviting you to
put your eyes on something lovely
and let music travel from your ears
to your soul
in this place, healing space

Here, the east meets the west
Holistic, calming, moving on a different journey
Giving you permission to be free
ungraded, beyond judgment and clinical science
This heavenly gift that transcends and transforms
worldly cares into a song of healing

Art is the art of helping people

More Poems & Stories

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Growth Phase

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

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American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

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enough

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Variant

Many of the people he worked with 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

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The Shift

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Walk With Me

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients.

Legacy of Hope

Although at times she becomes discouraged about the inequalities in the world, she is determined to do her part by making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.

Living in the Magic

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31.

The House Medicine Built

She had an epiphany as a child — that love could heal the world. Now, as a seasoned physician, there’s still a part of her that believes in the power of love, but not with the same idealism she once held.

Why Neurologists Write

He talked about recently speaking with a patient who experiences migraines: she is seeking the truth, he is seeking the truth to find a way to work with her, wanting to give more than a diagnosis and prognosis.

I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

List

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No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Where Do the Children Play?

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

We Shall Know Her Name

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

One Human Body

“Sometimes I feel so helpless,” said this resident, reflecting on all of the challenges faced by the young patients and their families whom she served. Over the last several days, she has become increasingly overwhelmed by events in the news and has questioned her ability to make a difference in the world.

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We Matter, Guys

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In The Middle Way

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'O ka mele

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She is a single mother born to a single mother and had to grow up fast. She is juggling a sticky work situation, her own anxiety and depression, and being away from home and her kids.

This Healing Place

I was invited to create a group poem for forty participants at the Arts in Healing luncheon, hosted by the Inova Health Foundation in partnership with the board.

What You Will Call Me

What does it mean for people living with Sickle Cell Disease to be seen, heard, and understood? For this person, it meant finding – and using – her voice to advocate for herself and for others.