Poetry Alchemy
for Our Times
Interview series
Learn how to use powerful poems to transform your life.
Discover the transformational power of poetry
Poetry Alchemy for Our Times is a ground-breaking series created and hosted by Ríonach Aiken who interviews leaders about the magical power of poetry to transform our lives.
Poetry is the perfect counterweight
to the challenges of our times
When we are caught up in our to-do lists, striving and struggling with overwhelm, poetry can remind us what life is really about. It brings us home to our deeper values.
Although we are ever more connected through technology, people feel increasingly isolated and alone. Poetry helps us to know that others share our experience and enables us to communicate our feelings more authentically.
As human beings we constantly have to navigate through inner and outer worlds of tremendous complexity. Poetry offers a language that is large enough to hold that complexity.
Nick Williams
Well-known author and thought leader Nick shares the poems that helped him cross thresholds or find meaning in difficult experiences.
Learn how powerful poems can help you to find meaning or create change. Nick shares many poems that have changed his life, including those that help you remember that who you truly are is love. He explains what a Spiritual Pro is and tells you how poems can empower your self-leadership.
About Nick Williams
Nick is a leader, mentor, speaker, author of many books (including The Work You Were Born To Do) and a wonderfully authentic guy. For over 20 years he was a co-Director and trustee of Alternatives at Saint James’s Church in Piccadilly, London. Founder of the Inspired Entrepreneur and Born to Lead communities, Nick has been the subject of more than a thousand media features and worked with many household-name companies, universities and spiritual organisations. Nick is a true alchemist whose work is about finding the gold of our true selves amongst the messy business of being human.
To find out more go to: iamnickwilliams.com
Kim Rosen
Saved by a Poem author and international teacher, Kim talks about the yoga of poetry, how poems can take you on a journey and create a deep connection.
Learn about the yoga of poetry – how a poem can stretch you into parts of yourself that you may not have fully inhabited. Kim tells you how to use a poem as a surgical tool to cut through the layers of your personality to create a communion with yourself and others. Discover the difference between memorising a poem and learning a poem by heart. Listen to stories about how poetry creates connection between people from different cultures and backgrounds.
About Kim Rosen
In the darkest moment of her life, when not even the most profound psychological and spiritual teachings could reach her, Kim found poetry. For 20 years she has forged deep relationships with poems that speak to her heart and soul, and knows hundreds by heart. She combines her love of speaking poems with her background in spirituality and psychotherapy, offering poetry as a transformative agent for individuals and communities throughout the world.
To find out more go to kimrosen.net
William Sieghart
Founder of National Poetry Day U.K., William created Britain’s largest prizes for poetry and publishes annual poetry anthologies. Also known as the Poetry Pharmacist, he prescribes poetry for various ailments of the spirit.
In this interview William shares his journey with poetry, offers poetry prescriptions for real people’s problems and talks about:
- the origins of his passion for poetry and what inspired him to set up the Forward Prizes and Forward books of poetry.
- how the poem that helped him through a traumatic experience on a London street was the beginning of realising how therapeutic a poem can be.
- how he first got started offering poetry prescriptions and how they became the most direct and powerful way of connecting people to poems he'd ever encountered.
- the most striking difficulties of modern life he has come across from listening to hundreds of people’s problems and the best poetic antidote he has found for these.
About William Sieghart
William has had a distinguished career in publishing and the arts. The founder of Forward Publishing, one of London’s leading magazine publishers, William is also a poetry-lover. He wanted an anthology containing the best poetry of the year. Since none existed, he published one himself. He founded the Forward Arts Foundation, the Forward Poetry Prizes, Britain’s largest prizes for poetry, and National Poetry Day (UK). William is a published author and a regular broadcaster. He has created several inspirational poetry anthologies, including Winning Words, The Poetry Pharmacy and The Poetry Pharmacy Returns. He prescribes poetry for various ailments of the spirit on radio, TV, at festivals and in libraries across the U.K.
To find out more go to forwardartsfoundation.org
Jackee Holder
Author, teacher and coach Jackee shares the poems that shaped her self-identity and offers tips for using poetry to connect with your innate wisdom.
In this interview Jackee will share how poetry has affected her throughout her life, many of the poems that have had an impact on her life, and talk about how poetry:
- Helps her to connect with her inner wisdom and stay centred in the midst of life’s stresses.
- Shaped her self-identity and helped her to feel at home in her own skin, allowing her to show up fully as a leader, teacher and role model for others.
- Can be used in writing workshops or personal journaling as a powerful way of healing through writing.
- Reminds her of her deep love for trees and shares the poems that connect her to their nurturing presence wherever she is.
- Can be a mantra and medicine to guide us on life’s journey and help to remind us of our soul’s purpose.
About Jackee Holder
Jackee is an executive leadership coach, author of many books including Soul Purpose and 49 Ways to Write Yourself Well. She is a trainer and keynote speaker working with organisations and groups across the world. Jackee is a prolific journal writer who runs creative writing and personal development programmes and retreats, and an online journal writing course, Sexy, Sacred Journal Writing as well as supporting writers through coaching and mentoring. Jackee loves trees, bookshops and learning poems off by heart.
To find out more go to jackeeholder.com
Jules Heavens
Transformational workshop leader Jules reveals how poetry transformed her fear of writing into a passion and helped her heal from a life-threatening illness.
In this interview you will learn how poetry:
- invites us to allow the wholeness of our experience of being human.
- transformed Jules' fear of writing into a passion, and the particular ways of engaging with poems that overcame her dyslexia.
- creates bridges that heal the disconnections of our Western culture – between rational and emotional, feminine and masculine, ancient and modern.
- arrived in magical ways to console and guide Jules at a time when her life seemed to be ending, and continues to heal residual damage from that illness.
- gives voice to the indigenous, feminine, hidden wisdoms that we need to create wholeness within ourselves and our world.
About Jules Heavens
Jules is a transformational mentor, facilitator and workshop leader who uses poetry as a powerful alchemical tool in her work. She has followed the path of healer for over 35 years, with a 20-year international career in nuclear medicine combined with training in a wide range of healing modalities, including kinesiology, emotional release work, coaching, shamanic traditions, sound healing and voice work. Jules has been a consultant to many businesses, founded the West Wales Women’s Turtle Medicine Lodge, and facilitates retreats, programmes and women's circles.
To find out more go to julesheavens.com
Anne F. O'Reilly
Author, poet and teacher Anne shares the poems that enabled her to live a passion for the possible and step through major transitions in her life.
On this call Anne shares her journey with poetry, many of the poems that have been transformational in her life, and talks about how reading, writing and reciting poetry:
- allows us to move from the everyday into the transcendent and the realm of the sacred.
- invited her into major transitions in her life, including moving on from a 30-year academic career to follow the voice of her soul.
- reminds her of the times she's felt profoundly connected when she is feeling lost and disconnected.
- has enabled her to live a passion for the possible and supports her to be faithful to the call of her heart, soul and body.
- can lay down new pathways in our brains and enables us to move in new ways in the world.
About Dr. Anne F. O'Reilly
Anne is an author, poet and teacher. A successful academic with four masters degrees and a PhD, her commitment to mystical poetry led her to work with the healing and transformative power of poetry. She facilitates workshops in spirituality, mindfulness, creative writing and sacred poetry, and has published a collection of her own poetry and a CD of spoken poetry with music by Wayne P. Sheehy.
To find out more go to anneforeilly.com
Rionach Aiken
Founder of Poetry Alchemy for Our Times and Visibility Mentor for Visionary Leaders, Ríonach shares many powerful poems, including one that catapulted her into leadership and her CEO role.
In this interview Ríonach will share many powerful poems, including:
- the poem that found her when she was lost and burnt out, and became a personal prayer that called a new life into being.
- how the poem she had the strongest resistance to (ever!) catapulted her into leadership and her Chief Executive role.
- how sharing a poem with an inspirational best-selling author opened her heart and fueled her commitment to create this interview series.
- how to work with a poem so that it harnesses your deepest sense of what’s possible for you and acts like a magnet to draw that into your life.
About Ríonach Aiken
Ríonach is a Visibility Mentor who overcame decades of debilitating shyness to become an international transformational coach, facilitator and speaker. She is the Poetry Alchemist™ and creator of the Poetry Alchemy for Our Times™ interview series. She unlocks the voices of visionary business owners so they can share their unique message and create magnetic connection with their audience.
To find out more go to rionachaiken.com
About guest interviewer, Olivia Stewart-Liberty
Olivia is a writer, novelist, journalist, poet and artist. To find out more go to oliviastewartliberty.com
About this series
When a poem is engaged with deeply, alchemy occurs.
The magical elements of the poem merge with our lived experience,
forging a powerful new perspective.
More and more people are finding that an encounter with the right poem at the right time can carry them across a new threshold in their lives.
When you allow the wisdom of a poem into your life, you discover poetry as a transformative force, an inspiration, a restorative, a shock absorber for the harshness of reality, a vision of a new reality, a revelation.
Something is happening. Quietly, organically, many teachers and leaders are finding new ways to use poetry to support themselves and others.
Poetry is becoming a new holistic movement.
- What is this new way of engaging with poetry and how is it different to what has come before?
- How can you find the powerful transformative poems that can open your heart, restore sanity and inspire you into action?
- What are the different ways you can bring these poems into your life to support you with everyday challenges?
Download my free guide to Using Poetry for Wholehearted Living here.
Get your Poetry Guide here