Several years ago while attending the National Association for Poetry Therapy's conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I accompanied a group of NAPT members and friends on a cable car ride to a restaurant at the top of the Sandia Mountains. I can remember standing at the window of the cable car looking down over the twinkling city more than 10,000 feet below, awed by the realization that I was looking at the city of my birth, to which I had returned after many years to accept my certificate as a poetry therapist. The walls of cliffs rose up around us as our hanging car continued its ascent up the mountain, strikingly huge and imposing, yet beautiful. I could barely wrap my mind around the reality that I was really here, that truly--in a way that was spiritually significant to me--I was home. Many of us have a number of similarly significant homecomings throughout our lifetimes. For me, earning my Ph.D. in literature after years of struggle to do so, looking into the eyes of my children, publishing a book--each of these events was, in a sense, a homecoming. Finding NAPT was a special kind of returning for me, and so was obtaining my credential of Certified Poetry Therapist (now Certified Applied Therapy Facilitator) four years after I started training. As I looked upon the "city of the turquoise sky" (as I had called Albuquerque since a previous visit years before), I felt embraced within the heart-centered universe of poetry and supported by the whole group of healers and friends that comprised the NAPT community. Now, as incoming president of NAPT, I wish that same sense of community to each of you.

Whether you are a writer, poet, therapist, educator/teacher, or life explorer, we welcome each one who honors and pursues the healing power of words. And whether you are interested in training to practice poetry therapy or facilitation through our sister organization the Federation for Biblio/Poetry Therapy ("the Federation") or choose to network with others in the expressive language arts for purposes that may not include training, NAPT embraces your presence at the table--at the banquet that is NAPT. Our immediate past president, Perie Longo, also used the metaphor of the table to describe NAPT's inclusiveness. She wrote: " I use the word 'table' because we are a feast of people from around the country and world who carry to others our 'good news' of poetry, as William Carlos Williams wrote. Enriched by each other's diversity of profession, occupation, vocation, and culture, each other's creativity, talent and experience, we share our enthusiasm and success about how we integrate poetry and other literature into our life and work."

During my term as president, I envision expanding and furthering the emphasis on growth and healing through language and in moving beyond divisiveness that may sometimes occur among different factions of any organization to embrace what we all have in common. Education, community practice and social action are equal to the clinical applications of poetry therapy within NAPT's purview, an idea that Geri Chavis expressed eloquently in her keynote speech in 1999 at the NAPT Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, when her topic was on the marriage between psychology and the humanities (Journal of Poetry Therapy 13:2). Since that time, we have added a tagline to reflect NAPT's common purpose: "Promoting growth and healing through language, symbol, and story." A relatively young organization (first organized in 1969 as the Association for Poetry Therapy established as the National Association for Poetry Therapy in 1981), NAPT has changed over the years while maintaining its central identity and purpose. As a poet and teacher, I, like many NAPT members and lovers of the poetic in both thought and language, believe that by reaching out to others from our core selves, we can change the world, one person, one poem, one story, one community, at a time.  In Gandhi's words, we can "be the change we wish to see in the world."

Toward that goal, we invite you to join one of our many committees to have your voice be heard. Elsewhere on this web site you will find the list of Board Members and their roles. You may want to work with Mary Caprio, VP of Membership; Richard Brown, VP of  Conferences; Karen vanMeenen, Chair of Publications and the Museletter; Barbara Bethea, Diversity Chair; Nick Mazza, Journal of Poetry Therapy Editor; Phyllis Klein, Secretary; Margaret Blanchard, Academic/Institutional Outreach Chair; or one of our Board Members-at-large: Evelyn Torton Beck, Ted Bowman, Geri Chavis, Hannah Menkin. If you are interested in becoming credentialed as a Certified Poetry Therapist (CPT), Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator (CAPF), or Registered Poetry Therapist (RPT), contact the Federation (www.nfbpt.com). They were all welcomed with open arms as you will be. The benefits are many, among them connecting with like-minded individuals to share experience and create new ways to expand the field.

I look forward to doing this work with you, to carrying the torch that is so important in  this world, recognizing and supporting all of you in affirming that language can heal. Each one of you has a role to play in NAPT's outreach. As Wendell Berry says in his poem "Some Further Words":

 . . . . Each one who speaks speaks

as a convocation. . . . It is not "human genius"

that makes us human, but an old love,

an old intelligence of the heart

we gather to us from the world . . .

Berry ends "Some Further Words" with lines that reflect the authenticity with which I aspire to serve as NAPT's president, an authenticity of place and of purpose known, according to Berry, by animals, each of which knows what it truly is. That knowing is not always possible, he says, especially now, but this is what we must stand for, holding ourselves and each other to being true human beings in a manner that so many NAPT leaders have modeled.. NAPT provides us a community within which to strive for that kind of true being. Let each of us gather from the world the tools we need to enrich, heal, and co-create. Thank you for being co-travelers on this journey.

Poetically yours,

Diane Allerdyce, Ph.D. CAPF

President
president@poetrytherapy.org