Poems in the Waiting Room

Poems in the Waiting Room (PitWR) is a U.K.-based and registered arts in health charity. The main aim of the charity is to supply short collections of poems for patients in National Health Service General Practice waiting rooms to read while waiting to see their doctor. The aim is to promote poetry, and to make the paient's wait more pleasant. The service is free to the waiting rooms and general practice managers, and is supported by grants and donations.

The poems are presented as A4 sized three-fold cards typically reproducing between six and eight poems. Batches of cards are printed and distributed to waiting rooms four times a year. Patients are invited to take the cards away with them.

A key consideration for the charity is the selection of poems. The crucial issue is that readers are patients waiting for a medical consultation. They are likely to be anxious, concerned, perhaps even in emotional distress. Guidelines for the selection of poems have been devised with this in mind, and with help from a consultant psychiatrist as well as from poets. The selection of poems is therefore different from, for example, the poetry that patients may themselves write as writing therapy. Poems selected for inclusion in PiTWR collections are a mix of contemporary work and poems from the canon of English poetry. Translations of poems from other traditions are also included. The essential is that they all contain positive images of hope, home, security, safe journey and arrival, beauty and transcendence, love and loving.

In addition to the selection, production and distribution of the poetry cards the charity also undertakes research into the cost effectiveness of the scheme, and supports related arts in health initiatives. Recent work focusses on the extension of the scheme to support the production of special editions tailored for distribution in hospitals, rather than general practice waiting rooms.

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Poems in the Waiting Room