We believe that healing begins when people are given the space to reclaim their voice. For more than forty years, our founder John Fox and the practitioners supported through the Institute for Poetic Medicine (IPM) have brought poetry-based healing practices to communities living at the margins by working with refugees, survivors of abuse, veterans experiencing moral injury, individuals in addiction recovery, hospice patients, healthcare workers facing burnout, and many others navigating profound emotional challenges.
Through workshops grounded in reflection, storytelling, and creative expression, we help people transform lived experience into connection and meaning. Our work has reached hospitals, medical schools, veteran programs, and communities around the world, guided by the belief that poetry is not reserved for professionals or academics, but rather it belongs to everyone.
That belief is what inspires our team at the IPM to partner with Crescent Moon Center. Together, our collaboration focuses on bringing free poetry and wellness workshops to adults in recovery, veterans, BIPOC mothers, disabled adults, LGBTQ+ community members, immigrants, refugees, and suicide-loss survivors throughout the Bay Area. Participants are invited to reconnect with themselves through both nature and creative expression. The horses we work with are our partners who help create a space of emotional grounding and presence, while writing poetry offers participants a way to process experiences, rediscover their voices, and build community through shared storytelling.
Our partnership also creates pathways for long-term empowerment. Crescent Moon Center participants have opportunities to train as poetry facilitators, allowing individuals who once came to workshops seeking healing to eventually lead and support others in their own communities. This is a model rooted not only in recovery, but in leadership and belonging.
The Horses for Mental Health campaign helps make this work possible. Funds raised will support more free poetry workshops and facilitator training opportunities and we support this campaign because healing should never depend on income, status, or background.
“My vision for Poetic Medicine for Resilience is simple and radical: the people Crescent Moon Center serves are not subjects of a poem — they are the poets… [Writing poetry] requires nothing but breath, imagination, and a willingness to explore.
Horses increase the depth of creative expression that comes from writing poems which heal. Because of the impactful relationship between poetry and horses, I created a Crescent Moon workshop called Horses and Poetry: Creativity and the Practice of Mindfulness. This workshop encouraged people to open up and be willing to share their writings, thereby building a sense of community among them. Horses were an integral part of this innovative process.”
– John Fox, Founder, The Institute for Poetic Medicine
By supporting this campaign, you are helping create spaces where people can heal through horses, creativity, and the rediscovery of their own voices.
2 Responses
Proud to be a Community Partner with Crescent Moon Center!
I have enjoyed working closely with Crescent Moon Center as a facilitator. Their vision of combining horses and creativity gives the world a way to discover wholeness.