Poetry or Pickleball?
July 25, 2025
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Writing poetry is enabling me to dodge the Grim Reaper. Teaching others to do it is the blessing.
There were an estimated 19.8 million pickleball players in 2024 in the U.S. On the other hand, sales of poetry books amounted to about three million – less than 0.4% of total book sales. So why do I even bother writing and teaching poetry?
Because I’m not about to move to The Villages, drive around in a golf cart like a Fred Flintstone wannabe, and play pickleball until my knees give out.
Research
tells us that male mortality increases by two percent in the very month men start claiming their Social Security benefits.
So the answer for me is, publish or perish – literally.
It was novelist Thornton Wilder who said seniors need to stave off death through work – even if it’s work that no longer drives a career.
It’s not only the act of writing poetry that is enabling me to give the Grim Reaper a run. Teaching others to do it is a major factor.
Volunteer work simply makes you feel good, as the above photo of the Hope Lodge
staff and volunteers attests. Supporting others has even been found
to reduce chronic inflammation. At least one study
shows high levels of social support lower cortisol and inflammatory proteins.
Three years ago I took Wilder’s wise advice and made it my “old man’s project” to teach cancer patients and their caregivers how to write poems that help them feel happier and healthier.
One “student” told me: “Writing poems has been a great outlet for me, and I thank you so much for introducing me to this. It’s very therapeutic and healing.”
Another said: “Your class has opened a new world to me, and I'm so appreciative.”
You can imagine how comments like those make me feel. It can’t compare to winning a pickleball match.
My program with the American Cancer Society is called Verses of Hope. Once a week I commute from my home in New Haven to the Society’s Hope Lodge, a block from Madison Square Garden.
My involvement with Hope Lodge seemed to peak on Wednesday during a reception for the New York City social workers and medical center representatives who are responsible for referring patients to stay at Hope Lodge during their scheduled treatment regimens.
The aim was to show these visitors the range of services available to Lodge guests during their stay: reiki, estate planning, movement, play, art therapy, healing cuisine, and, of course, my therapeutic poetry writing.
I was able to personally meet and brief eighteen persons during the reception and all of them – all of them – walked away sold on the physical and emotional benefits of expressive writing.
When the reception ended at seven o’clock, I set up in the Society’s meeting room and conducted my Zoom poetry workshop, which I offer every other Wednesday.
I began these bi-weekly workshops last month as an effort to provide ongoing support for writing healing poetry. It’s a supportive, no-critique, safe space – all about feeling better, not just writing better.
We read and discuss a poem that has healing attributes, spend fifteen minutes writing a poem in response, and the remainder of the hour is an open microphone period for participants to share their poem if they want to.
Each workshop has a theme relevant to emotional stress, anxiety, or trauma. So far, we’ve explored themes of fear, perseverance, humor, coping, and self-discovery. Our next Zoom gathering will be at 7 P.M. Eastern on August 6. We’ll see what the poem “Those Winter Sundays” can teach us about self-healing.
The workshops are open not only to cancer patients, but also to anyone who would like to apply poetry to smoothen some of life’s rough edges. Here
is the Zoom link.