Welcome to Revisionary Arts
Revisionary Arts (RA) is a nonprofit that facilitates self-care and healing through poetry. In other words, we strive to construct spaces where participants feel empowered to creatively explore their human vulnerabilities.
What is Poetry Therapy?
Simply put, poetry therapy is a personal and communal celebration of our human vulnerability. More specifically, it involves the exploration of our past and present through poetic discussion, reflection, and expression.
Why Poetry?
Like any form of writing, poetry is a means of articulating our experiences, reclaiming our agency, and communicating our truths. It is both a container for our suffering as well as a portal to a deeper understanding of it.
We privilege the poetic medium because of its lyrical appeal and its ancient roots, its association with the marginalized and its malleability in the face of personal and social change.
Our Origin Story
RA’s founding director, Dr. Rosemarie Dombrowski, began exploring the medicinal value of poetry over two decades ago. As the single parent and primary caregiver to a son with nonverbal Autism (as well as other disabilities and disorders), her poetry became a space for sharing her son’s story as well as processing her own pain and trauma, the latter of which eventually led her to a specialization in poetry therapy and the Medical Humanities.
After receiving a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets in May 2020, she was inspired to create RA and make poetry therapy a more widely recognized complementary modality.
Community Gratitude
“Poetic therapy led me to a reflective space of encounter and mutual release between body and soul/heart/spirit where I was able to get out of my own way and connect with the necessary emotions and words.”
Roxanne Doty, workshop participant, writer, and lover of cats.
“I look forward to this event every month. It is very empowering, and I feel safe and validated. So grateful this opportunity came into my life and I hope it continues for a long time.”
Workshop Participant
“I was intimidated to join, but the workshop was very welcoming, and I didn’t have to put myself out of my comfort zone if I didn’t want to.”
Workshop Participant
Revisionary Arts is made possible (in part) by the Academy of American Poets, with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Revisionary Arts 