In a pavilion filled with light and wonder, visitors to the Sharjah International Book Fair 2025 were treated to a unique experience called the «Poetry Pharmacy». Here, poems are offered as therapeutic doses instead of chemical medicines to heal hearts, memory, and psychological wounds. Behind this initiative is the British poet and first responder Deborah Alma, known as the «Poetry Paramedic». During her years of working in emergency departments, she discovered the power of poetry to heal the soul as well as the body. The «Poetry Pharmacy» experiment began in 2011 with an old ambulance that was transformed into a mobile project. It offers poems in bottles that resemble medicine boxes, distributed according to the recipients' moods and psychological states.
