There is probably no one who has done more to raise the profile of poetry in the UK than William Sieghart He established the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 1992, and founded National Poetry Day in 1994. He is a former chairman of the Arts Council Lottery Panel, and current chairman of both the Somerset House Trust and Forward Thinking, a charity seeking peace in the Middle East and acceptance of British Muslims.
He has curated numerous poetry anthologies
include Winning Words: Inspiring Poems for Everyday Life (2014), Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry (2015) and 100 Prized Poems: Twenty-five Years of
the Forward Books (2016). He was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to public libraries. His Poetry Pharmacy, which extolls the healing power of poetry, began in 2014; since then, he has prescribed almost a thousand poems up and down the UK through hundreds of hours of one on one in-person consultations.
His latest book, The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions For Courage, Healing and Hope presents 56 of the poems that again and again through his poetry pharmacy sessions have really shown themselves to help people, whether they are suffering from such conditions as loneliness, lack of courage, heartbreak, hopelessness, anxiety or even news overload or an excess of ego.
In short, he’s a poetry rock star!
‘A matchless compound of hug, tonic and kiss’ Stephen Fry on William
Sieghart’s bestselling Poetry Pharmacy
Buy The Poetry Pharmacy from your local Bookseller:
