What do you think?
Rate this book
Poetry Prescription: Becoming
This beautiful pocket-sized hardback gift book contains carefully curated prescriptions in verse from the Poetry Pharmacy. Life is lived with feeling - and these poems will bring you courage.
Inspiration for courage, confidence and authenticity; Stimulants for a Faint Heart; to Counteract Quitting
Includes poems by William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Edward Thomas, W. B. Yeats, William Shakespeare and many more.
No bitter pills
No adverse reactions
The Poetry Pharmacy series compiled by Deborah Alma is the perfect prescription for life’s ailments. Inspired by the achingly cool Poetry Pharmacy shops in London and Shropshire - social media favourites with a clear focus on promoting wellbeing through the written and spoken word. Each of the 8 themed titles offers an array of poems to inspire, heal and comfort. Whether readers are looking to find solace for times of ill-health, loss and grief, cope with matters of the heart, need poetic inspiration for courage and confidence, or want to find peace and tranquillity in wild spaces, there is a collection for everyone. Perfect for reading aloud or for quiet contemplation, these books are a much needed balm for our busy lives.
Inspiration for courage, confidence and authenticity; Stimulants for a Faint Heart; to Counteract Quitting
Includes poems by William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Edward Thomas, W. B. Yeats, William Shakespeare and many more.
No bitter pills
No adverse reactions
The Poetry Pharmacy series compiled by Deborah Alma is the perfect prescription for life’s ailments. Inspired by the achingly cool Poetry Pharmacy shops in London and Shropshire - social media favourites with a clear focus on promoting wellbeing through the written and spoken word. Each of the 8 themed titles offers an array of poems to inspire, heal and comfort. Whether readers are looking to find solace for times of ill-health, loss and grief, cope with matters of the heart, need poetic inspiration for courage and confidence, or want to find peace and tranquillity in wild spaces, there is a collection for everyone. Perfect for reading aloud or for quiet contemplation, these books are a much needed balm for our busy lives.
- GenresPoetry
64 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2025
16 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 25, 2025
i really enjoyed this collection and i probably picked it up at just the right time in my life as i was truly able to connect to the poems in this! very insightful and vulnerable picks <3
November 29, 2025
2.5 stars.
Not my favourite Poetry Pharmacy collection, there were too many poems that I didn't connect with at all. But here are those that I did enjoy...
There you are
There you are
this cold day
boiling the water on the stove
pouring the herbs into the pot
hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table
saying please, please to nobody else
here in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do,
in case they help, these things you do
which, although you haven’t said it yet,
say that you want to live.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley
*
The Winds of Fate
One ship drives east and another drives west,
With the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That tell them the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life,
'Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
*
On the First Day of Autumn (excerpt)
I give myself permission
to go outside
so nature can have a different look
and a different sound
a different sound in the stream
running over stones
a different look
in the floor of yellow leaves
of autumn just begun
I allow myself to listen
to have rest..
Jason Allen-Paisant
*
Self-Reliance
Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men's opinions...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
*
To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
Or leave out any part of you.
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
The whole moon shines.
Fernando Pessoa
*
On Days When
you feel like a wilting garden,
gather yourself, roll up your lawn,
bouquet your flowers,
embrace your weeds.
You are a wild thing playing
at being tame.
You are rich with life beneath
the surface.
You don't have to show leaf
and petal to be living.
You are soil and insect and root.
Dean Atta
*
from Sing-Song
An emerald is as green as grass;
A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.
A diamond is a brilliant stone,
To catch the world's desire;
An opal holds a fiery spark;
But a flint holds fire.
Christina Rossetti
*
Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance
Sometimes, I think you get the worst
of me. The much-loved loose forest-green
sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair
knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow
where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed
dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means
I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt,
the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange
peels on my desk, but it's different than that.
I move in this house with you, the way I move
in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage.
I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me
than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you,
but it's more that when you say it back, lights
out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe
the first time in my life, I believe it.
Ada Limón
*
The Moment
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
Margaret Atwood
*
Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Jenny Joseph
*
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
'Hurry, you will be dead before—'
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
May Sarton
Not my favourite Poetry Pharmacy collection, there were too many poems that I didn't connect with at all. But here are those that I did enjoy...
There you are
There you are
this cold day
boiling the water on the stove
pouring the herbs into the pot
hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table
saying please, please to nobody else
here in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do,
in case they help, these things you do
which, although you haven’t said it yet,
say that you want to live.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley
*
The Winds of Fate
One ship drives east and another drives west,
With the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That tell them the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life,
'Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
*
On the First Day of Autumn (excerpt)
I give myself permission
to go outside
so nature can have a different look
and a different sound
a different sound in the stream
running over stones
a different look
in the floor of yellow leaves
of autumn just begun
I allow myself to listen
to have rest..
Jason Allen-Paisant
*
Self-Reliance
Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men's opinions...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
*
To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
Or leave out any part of you.
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
The whole moon shines.
Fernando Pessoa
*
On Days When
you feel like a wilting garden,
gather yourself, roll up your lawn,
bouquet your flowers,
embrace your weeds.
You are a wild thing playing
at being tame.
You are rich with life beneath
the surface.
You don't have to show leaf
and petal to be living.
You are soil and insect and root.
Dean Atta
*
from Sing-Song
An emerald is as green as grass;
A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.
A diamond is a brilliant stone,
To catch the world's desire;
An opal holds a fiery spark;
But a flint holds fire.
Christina Rossetti
*
Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance
Sometimes, I think you get the worst
of me. The much-loved loose forest-green
sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair
knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow
where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed
dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means
I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt,
the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange
peels on my desk, but it's different than that.
I move in this house with you, the way I move
in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage.
I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me
than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you,
but it's more that when you say it back, lights
out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe
the first time in my life, I believe it.
Ada Limón
*
The Moment
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
Margaret Atwood
*
Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Jenny Joseph
*
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
'Hurry, you will be dead before—'
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
May Sarton
July 12, 2025
I really like the idea of these short anthologies published by the Poetry Pharmacy, each focused on a distinct theme related to well-being. “Becoming” brings several classic poems I like into dialogue with less-familiar ones from contemporary voices. I particularly like two poems by Jennifer Wong (a poet I’d never heard of), as well as “What if this Road” and “Eagle Poem”, by Sheenagh Pugh and Joy Harjo, respectively. The collection closes with the beautiful “Evening” by Rainer Maria Rilke, an excellent reminder that I need to explore his work more fully.
This is a small, easy-to-read collection that nevertheless has moments of great clarity, beauty, and wisdom. I highly recommend having a look at the books that comprise this series and trying out one whose theme has personal appeal; they’re especially well-suited as a starting-point to the genre, for those who aren’t commonly in the habit of reading poetry.
This is a small, easy-to-read collection that nevertheless has moments of great clarity, beauty, and wisdom. I highly recommend having a look at the books that comprise this series and trying out one whose theme has personal appeal; they’re especially well-suited as a starting-point to the genre, for those who aren’t commonly in the habit of reading poetry.
April 9, 2025
Another excellent connection of diverse and wonderful poets and poems. Quite a lot of American writers, but some of my favourites: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, May Sarton, Langston Hughes. Lots of food for thought about identity, confidence, and belonging.
September 21, 2025
An interesting collection, perhaps not exactly as described, I found very few of these poems gave inspiration for courage. But many of them are a fascinating perspective of alternative outlooks on life and it introduced me to a couple of new favourites.
October 5, 2025
I give this collection 2,5 stars. There were a few poems that I liked and enjoyed, but also many that weren't quite my style or to my liking. Altogether it's a lovely idea and I loved the book shop a lot and therefore it was a nice little new experience for me.
December 31, 2025
Good choices.
February 9, 2026
Not my favorite poetry collection of all time, but definitely full of some hidden gems. A cozy read to sit down with and breathe.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews