The other day I heard William Seighart talking about ODE on the radio. ODE is an AI app (a truly good use of AI) which chooses a real poem read by a real human to soothe the soul. Stephen Fry, who reads some of the poems, explains how it works:
As Fry says, the poems in ODE’s library come from Sieghart’s The Poetry Pharmacy, collections of poems that offer comfort, hope and perspective or, as the first volume describes them: prescriptions for the heart, mind and soul.
The rights to the poems have been cleared for use on ODE and when I asked for something to soothe physical anxiety, Stephen Fry read me a poem called A Blessing by James Wright. Its beautiful last lines are:
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
A glorious image of release.
When I asked ODE for something to help me understand the resurgence of racism in the British Press when writing about Dr Jason Arday ODE recommended John Donne‘s No Man is an Island whose penultimate lines are:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
ODE is approved for NHS clinical recommendation through ORCHA … I highly recommend it.
Seighart’s Poetry Pharmacy books shouldn’t be confused with Deborah Alma’s Poetry Pharmacy bookshops (there’s one in Shropshire, one in York and one in London) nor her poetry prescriptions. I wrote about Deborah Alma and her Poetry Pharmacies here six years ago.
And if you should happen to be in or near Barnes, south-west London or Wigtown, south-west Scotland towards the end of September, I’ll be there too, at two seprate literary festivals. Details here.