Date of Award
2025
First Advisor
Jennifer Daniels
Second Advisor
Francisca Oyogoa
Third Advisor
Anne O'Dwyer
Abstract
This thesis is an examination of poetry’s therapeutic potentiality–exploring the expression of the “Unsayable” through writing, performing, and reading poetry. It is at once an academic review of the literature (journals, books, and essays) surrounding poetry’s capacity to ground survivors of trauma and grief, as well as a personal account of my utilization of creative writing to realize and reckon with my experiences and losses. I argue that poetry has a unique and remarkably somatic ability to re/connect people with themselves and their communities, and additionally provide a lens through which both patient and therapist can articulate and metabolize their reactions and emotions, as well as better understand each other. One of my main goals with this thesis was to begin to discover how much of my experience of poetry could be useful, one day, in my therapeutic practice, and to be able to articulate more clearly what was my experience uniquely, versus that which could be reproduced on a clinical level.
Recommended Citation
Sisler-Dubetz, Zephyr, "Writing the Unsayable: An Exploration of Somatic Poetics in Relationship to Therapeutic Grief and Trauma Work" (2025). Senior Theses. 1706.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/sr-theses/1706
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