You'll Never Walk Alone: Poems for life's ups and downs

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On to the book itself; this is a book of poems that have been put together by Rachel Kelly, who is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Rachel Kelly is a writer and a mental health campaigner and ‘an advocate for the therapeutic power of poetry’. She has published several other books and is an ambassador for several mental health and wellbeing related charities. She introduces the book and includes some detail around how poetry has helped her psychological wellbeing and has a healing power. In sharing the poems and arranging them by season she hopes to help other’s wellbeing and also to highlight that it’s perfectly acceptable to have a variety of different feelings, including both highs and lows, both of which are equally valid. Government here must play a role in helping the disadvantaged, sitting at home on their own. We desperately need more psychiatric beds and more NHS funding for these serious cases. This new understanding naturally leads to different answers to the psychological problems. We need a two-pronged approach, and neither answer is about supplying more medical help or more demands on the NHS. The first applies to all of us; the second is more targeted. It was something my own mother recognised: it was she who gave me this poem. Now a mother myself, I too sometimes feel powerless in the face of the suffering of my own children, or indeed my own feelings of abandonment. This spiritual allows me to accept my own limitations, just as it may have helped my mother to accept hers. This book will show you how to bring poetry into your everyday emotional reality, where it can be a new tool for wellbeing. And one that means you’ll never walk alone.

Poetry lets us connect with other people who have experienced similar sentiments. We’re not alone in our despair or delight. There is also a section towards the end of the book titled ‘Enhancing Your Enjoyment of Poetry’ where Rachel Kelly provides ideas around reading, memorising and writing poetry and then ‘selecting individual inspiring lines of poetry’. The reading poetry section states, ‘Start with the belief that poems can be a source of wisdom and beauty, open to anybody. Look at them as simply a way individuals have found to better convey moods and feelings that, can sometimes be so hard to pin down or find the right words for.’ She also goes on to mention that due to the way some poems are worded, they can be like reading a song. Again, this is something I really feel with poetry. Songs and music have the ability to make me emotional and I find that the poems I enjoy the most are those I can almost read and imagine them being sung. The short section around writing poetry encourages the reader to try poetry as a way to express feelings and emotions.

As if in the middle of an intimate conversation between the poet and reader, the poem begins with what seems strange advice. Oliver urges us to unlearn one of the first lessons we are taught – to be good. In fact, we do not have to be good to be loved. Instead, all we need to do is reconnect with our essential loving, animal nature. All we must do is to ‘let’ this happen. You’ll Never Walk Alone is a collection of the kind of inspirational texts – mainly poems – that can accompany us, whatever we are feeling, from sorrow to delight. The texts are not just about words which can console us or comfort us – though they often do this too. Rather these are poems that allow us to enjoy a full range of emotions. The poems are organised according to the season in which they ‘belong’: we all have seasons of our minds, be they wintery and dark, or more spring-like and hopeful. Comprising 52 poems, with analysis by Rachel, You’ll Never Walk Alone introduces a poem for each week of the year plus tips on bringing poetry into your life.

Obviously, if you hate poetry this book probably isn’t going to be right for you, but if you either already like poetry or are even slightly undecided about it, then this is a gentle introduction to poems grouped together to link to specific moods, so you already know which section to go to if reading them for wellbeing reasons. It isn’t a book I’d have thought to have bought for myself but is one I’d recommend as a gift for someone, maybe for Mother’s Day as that is coming up or as an alternative Easter present. As I mentioned at the start of my review, I found the actual book aesthetically pleasing, so it would likely go down well to unwrap from pinky purple wrapping paper as an eye catching gift. You'll Never Walk Alone is a collection of the kind of inspirational texts - mainly poems - that can accompany us, whatever we are feeling, from sorrow to delight. The texts are not just about words which can console us or comfort us - though they often do this too. Rather these are poems that allow us to enjoy a full range of emotions. The poems are organised according to the season in which they 'belong': we all have seasons of our minds, be they wintery and dark, or more spring-like and hopeful. Comprising 52 poems, with analysis by Rachel, You'll Never Walk Alone introduces a poem for each week of the year plus tips on bringing poetry into your life. That’s not to say that You’ll Never Walk Alone is a glib panacea for depression or sadness. Some of the entries are despairing and negative, affording the reader the opportunity to realise all emotions are valid and acceptable – it’s what we do with those emotions that counts. Offers companionship during our darker, but also our happy times, on the emotional rollercoaster that is life. She points out that we find comfort in the knowledge that we are not alone with our feelings, and poetry can give us a strong sense of our common humanity. She also points out that neurological research shows that poetry speaks to a part of our brains that is more primitive, maybe because poetry has a long oral tradition, therefore eliciting a more visceral reaction, which tends to be more healing to traumatic emotions. -- MindHealth360

Rachel's wonderful book offers a carefully curated and wisely annotated selection of poems designed to offer support and solace during the more heart-stopping, heartbreaking, exhilarating, joyful, and unpredictable times of our life.' Are we going to have to radically reappraise how we approach mental wellbeing more broadly, given that the level of demand raises the possibility of the NHS never being able to solve the growing mental health crisis?

If the thought of writing daunts you. Don’t think about it as being good or bad. Instead, write straight from the heart: writing for wellbeing is as much about how you feel as the words you choose and the images they suggest. You have overcome great challenges in your life and use those to help and inspire others which is wonderful. How do you manage your mental health with such a busy life?

Poetry can be like a salve to the soul if you find just the right one to read in the right set of circumstances. This inspirational and soothing collection, organised according to the season, not only provides great comfort but acts as a friend, too, when there are times to celebrate. As the title suggests, you'll never walk alone when you have this trusty companion by your bedside. -- My Weekly Motherless children have a hard time Motherless children have such a hard time Motherless children have such a really hard time