Poetry and medicine and new poetry commentaries in JAMA

There is now an emerging body of research that supports Keats’ profound intuitions about poetry’s possible healing benefits. But these studies may be asking poetry to prove itself in ways it should not have to. What lately seems the most compelling evidence of an abiding link between poetry and medicine is the volume of poems submitted to JAMA, written by scientists, clinicians, patients, and family members; tellingly, the number of incoming poetry manuscripts rose even higher during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon prompted a conversation about ways to give poetry more visibility in the journal.

As a result, in this issue, JAMA introduces a new feature commentary to accompany the published poem roughly twice each month. The commentaries will examine the themes the poems explore and articulate—from the possibilities of empathy and compassion to the nature of human suffering, from the so-called social determinants of health to the deabstracting of health inequities, from the sheer joy in our physicality to the unbearable pain our bodies can bring, from the awe at the beginning and end of life to the Hippocratic ideals of altruism and service, from the mysteries of spirituality and faith to the distancing caused by the compartmentalization, specialization, and “technologization” of medicine, and more. The commentaries will also provide critical appraisals of the forms, language, and contexts that make the poems noteworthy.

This volume is not Open Access but may be available via institutional library and journal access.