What if your art practice could strengthen your mind? Join The Napkin Poetry Review for a workshop that will teach you not only how to make poetry an accessible part of your everyday toolbox, but also how to use it to think more clearly and creatively. After some interactive questions to help you reflect on your cognitive and emotional goals, we’ll share the psychology and neuroscience behind how poetry enhances mental flexibility and rational processing.

We’ll then share case studies of great thinkers––from scientists to artists to business entrepreneurs––who have also used poetry to help achieve their aspirations.

Then it’s your turn to try: through a series of short, freestyle writing prompts, we will teach you some exercises that can break down fixed ideas to cultivate emotional intelligence, spontaneity, and unforeseen creative links you can carry into any sphere of life. Whether or not you’ve ever called yourself a poet, after this workshop you’ll have the resources to wield this art wherever you go.

About your host

Born from the idea that across history, the most skilled poets could encapsulate a life-story on the back of a cocktail napkin, bringing creation stories—sparks of brilliance—to life, The Napkin Poetry Review (www.napkinpoetryreview.org; @napkinpoetry_review) is a platform founded by Anna Seidel and Caroline King that celebrates poets and their ability to translate imaginations into narratives we can experience. Through consulting, art collaborations, community outreach, poetry publications, and interviews, our initiative engages global-minded readers and writers to promote poetry as a tool for mental, physical, and social wellbeing.

Based on scientific and interdisciplinary research, we believe that poetry is an exercise that affects the brain in ways both overlapping and distinct from other linguistic forms. By offering insights on how to incorporate poetry into our daily lives, we hope to encourage mindfulness and reflection, highlighting poetry’s capacity to build both conceptual thinking tools and empathic understandings that can help connect communities. As a platform, we hope to contribute to mediations of this cultural dialogue as we support and advocate for understandings of the magic, both quantitative and undefinable, behind this art form.