Poetry and Dementia

John Killick has been the Writer in Residence and Poet Mentor on several Poetry and Dementia projects over the last 25 years. He currently runs a residential Poetry and Dementia course in Wales.

• Part One: Introductory. Part Two: Reading Poetry. 2.1 What Poems to Choose. 2.2. Building a Programme. Part Three: Writing Poetry. 3.1. Group-Work and One-to-Ones. 3.2. How to Run Groups. 3.3. Examples of Group-Work Poems. 3.4. Why Do One-to-Ones? 3.5. How to do One-to-Ones? 3.6. The Art of Listening. 3.7. The Art of Transcribing. 3.8. The Art of Editing. 3.9. Ways of Sharing. 3.10. The Present Moment. 3.11. Portraits. Part Four: Issues Arising. 4.1. Ownership of Poems. 4.2. Truth-Telling. 4.3. Aims and Objects. 4.4. Therapeutic Approaches. 4.5. Support for the Poet. 4.6. Evaluation. Part Five: Postscript. Part Six: Resources. 6.1. Recommendations and References. 6.2. Books and Articles. 6.3. Organizations and Websites.

In this wonderful distillation of long experience John Killick shows us the potential of poetry both as a way of stimulating discussion, and of enabling people with dementia to have a voice. Using his own work and that of colleagues, he provides careful guidance which will be invaluable.