Our Bi-Monthly Thyroid Poetry Café

​Hello, my name is A.R.Salandy and if you’re reading this then you’re interested in our Thyroid Poetry Cafes. During our inaugural café we had the pleasure of discussing our Thyroid illnesses and their impact on our daily lives and social interactions that spawn poetry and other creative endeavours. 

During our sessions we have heard from two intimate groups of individuals with a variety of thyroid illnesses including; Hashimoto’s, Hypothyroidism and Graves Disease. We also heard about the creative process that has facilitated the attendees writing journeys. Through our struggles as a group, we were able to not only break ground with our writing but also expand on our creativity through developing our experiences, sentiments and reflections on living, learning and creating with a Thyroid Illness.

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This event encourages attendees to openly discuss their experiences with Thyroid Illnesses both directly and through the medium of poetry within a safe-space. Further, group discussions reflected a variety of influences from poetry to social isolation, anxiety and coping with fatigue. 

This event is held Bi-Monthly with our first two sessions being held in May and July 2022. Our next Thyroid Poetry Café will be held on Sunday 25th September at 7pm. For more information on the event can be found here. Please share these events with your friends and family and I hope to see you at one in the future.

Reflections from my seat at the 'thyroid cafe' table...

​Written by Karen George
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I was intrigued by the idea of a 'Thyroid poetry café' - I must admit I wasn't quite sure what to expect - but thought I'd give it a whirl and signed up for the first one. The atmosphere on the call was friendly and welcoming and it was nice to be able to express our feelings about thyroid disease through a completely different medium.

​A couple of people read poems they'd written about their experiences of living with thyroid disease which I found very moving. I always think poetry is a very personal, raw form of writing so was reluctant to put my own attempts at verse out there. But, buoyed by the others at the session, I did read my poem and it felt strangely liberating and cathartic to do so in a safe and encouraging space. I also found it encouraging to read aloud something I had written some months before (when I was in quite a dark place!) and realise that it wasn't how I felt now. The roller-coaster journey that comes with living with thyroid diseases seems perfectly suited to expression through poetry!!

​We went on to talk about words and language and what makes a poem and also how hard it can be to describe pain or how an illness makes you feel physically and mentally. So, even if you don't write or read poetry yourself why not drop into the 'poetry café' and give it a try - it might inspire you to put pen to paper yourself... 

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