Poetry for Coaching: Transformation Through Verse

These poems were selected by a team of 7 co-editors standing together as The Creative Coaching Collective: Anjli Gheewala, Kate Jenkinson, Tracey McEachran, Sarah Moores, Ross Nichols, Elizabeth Papalia and Sharon Strimling.

We can all feel stuck at times, limited by difficult experiences. It’s not always clear where to find support. Poetry and storytelling can provide appropriate support either as standalone resources or within a coaching context.

Poetry for Coaching is an anthology of poems and the stories behind them, written by coaches, counsellors, and therapists to support personal transformation, empowerment and healing.

This book provides a unique opportunity for the reader to benefit from the depth of experience of qualified coaches and therapists who have faced and overcome rich and textured life challenges. Here they share with you their insights and learning - through the power and beauty of poetry and prose.

The Anthology has been grouped into chapters based on themes that are the stuff of coaching: Connection; Love; Acceptance; Forgiveness; Resilience; and Life. These themes may be used to guide the reader when seeking support for a specific challenge. The book can also be read more generally for inspiration and the sheer beauty of the poems and stories. If you’ve never read a poem before, you are in the right place! Simply relax, suspend judgment, and let your curiosity draw you to whatever it is you need at this moment, be that a poem or a story. Or perhaps you are a coach, counsellor or therapist and see the value in using this resource in your practice.

Poetry, in its brevity and elegance, engages us with layered meanings. It can take us beyond the words on the page to touch our very souls. As Phillip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, wrote: ＂Poetry is not a fancy way of giving you information; it’s an incantation. It is actually a magic spell. It changes things; it changes you.＂

From early in my coaching career, I found myself spontaneously sharing poems and stories with my clients. When I did, they almost always found them useful. Later I began to write my own poems and sometimes shared these with my clients, which were generally well received. What I’ve noticed is that poetry and storytelling can help people to:

• Connect to others’ experience
• Gain insights into their own experience
• Be present with their own emotions and go deeper into themselves
• Reframe their experience
• Gain fresh perspectives
• Provoke new ways of thinking
• Evoke awareness of their uniqueness
• Equip themselves emotionally and spiritually for the current stage of their life journey
• Realise they are not alone, that others have walked the same path
• Poetry can also be used as part of a coach’s reflective practice

Storytelling adds richness and context to the poems. Combining stories with poems heightens the impact of both: one can unlock new meaning in the other. Applying poetry and storytelling to coaching enhances the art of coaching by enlarging the coaching space, enabling new possibilities to emerge.