Chandigarh, September 6, 2025: Human instinct to turn to art remains unchanged. Whether through painting, music, or the rhythm of poetry, people reach for creative expression not only to make sense of life but also to heal. The essence of art, researchers and poets say, is not in perfection or beauty alone—it is in the ability to carry human pain, joy, and longing in ways words or logic alone cannot.
Modern science increasingly acknowledges what civilizations have long understood: art heals. Studies in neuroaesthetics—a field that explores how the brain responds to artistic experiences—have revealed that poetry, music, and visual art stimulate areas of the brain connected to memory, empathy, and emotional regulation.
“Art allows us to process trauma without directly naming it,” says Dr. Nandita Sharma, a psychiatrist based in Delhi who often prescribes journaling and poetry-writing to patients dealing with anxiety. “When someone cannot articulate grief in plain speech, they can express it in metaphors, in color, in rhythm. That symbolic language eases the burden.”
Hospitals around the world have also introduced art therapy programs, with patients painting, writing, or listening to poetry to reduce stress and cope with chronic illness. The American Journal of Public Health has documented how art interventions improve emotional well-being, lower blood pressure, and even ease physical pain.
While novels, essays, and journalism inform and entertain, poetry reaches a deeper layer of human consciousness. Its economy of words, paired with imagery and rhythm, mirrors the way emotions arrive—fragmented, intense, and layered.
“Poetry is not a luxury; it is a necessity of our existence,” the late writer Audre Lorde once said. For Lorde and countless others, poetry becomes the bridge between inner chaos and collective understanding.
In Kashmir, verses have long carried pain and resilience. In Punjab, folk poetry sung in villages has helped communities mourn and celebrate together. From Rumi’s spiritual couplets to Pablo Neruda’s political odes, poetry persists because it distills truth in a way no other form can.
For young people today, poetry is resurfacing on social media platforms as bite-sized verses and spoken-word performances. The simplicity of a few lines—sometimes just one—captures the overwhelm of an era defined by both information overload and loneliness.
Art has always been stitched into human survival. Cave paintings in Bhimbetka, India, dating back 30,000 years, depict hunting scenes that were not only records but also symbols of collective identity. Ancient epics like the Mahabharata or Homer’s Odyssey were, at their core, poetry—designed to be recited, remembered, and passed down orally.
Poetry’s role was never confined to literature; it was part of ritual, healing, and community. Shamans and healers used chants to ease suffering. Resistance movements used songs and verses to inspire courage. Lovers turned to poetry to express what speech faltered to say.
“Every society has used art to endure,” notes historian Farah Naqvi. “When people could not speak against power, they wrote poems. When war and exile broke families, they painted or sang. Art is survival encoded in metaphor.”
The 21st century has introduced a paradox: technological connection but emotional disconnection. Mental health struggles, especially depression and loneliness, are rising globally. In this context, poetry and art are re-emerging as anchors.
Workshops teaching poetry-writing as therapy are gaining ground. Universities offer courses where students don’t just study poems—they write their own to explore identity, grief, and love. Online platforms are filled with community poetry slams where marginalized voices find power.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when isolation engulfed millions, poetry was shared across WhatsApp groups, Instagram stories, and live-streamed readings. Lines of hope and longing became a collective lifeline. “Poetry went viral when nothing else could,” recalls poet Ranjit Hoskote.
The healing power of poetry is not only cultural but physiological. Neuroscientists say the brain responds to rhythm and metaphor in ways similar to music. Repetition in a poem can slow the heartbeat, reduce cortisol, and calm the nervous system.
A 2017 University of Exeter study found that participants listening to poetry experienced measurable changes in brain activity associated with memory recall and self-reflection. Unlike ordinary speech, poetry’s heightened language triggers “reward centers” in the brain, similar to listening to music.
“Poetry is the closest language to emotion itself,” says Professor Vivek Menon, who teaches literature in Bangalore. “It works because our bodies recognize rhythm, our hearts recognize metaphor. It is the language of the subconscious.”
While poetry is central, other forms of art carry similar healing capacities. A brushstroke on canvas, the swirl of a dancer’s body, the notes of a sitar—all convey emotions too heavy for words.
Trauma researchers often note how survivors may be unable to narrate their experience directly, but they can draw it, sing it, or move it out of their body through dance. In doing so, they reclaim agency over their story.
This is why communities ravaged by disaster often turn to collective art-making. In flood-hit Punjab villages, children painted murals of rivers and crops as symbols of resilience. In war-torn regions, poetry readings become safe spaces of solidarity.
As technology accelerates and artificial intelligence mimics human tasks, the question arises: what remains uniquely human? The answer, many argue, lies in art.
Machines may generate words or images, but the essence of human poetry lies in its lived pain, longing, and joy. Poetry is not only about producing verses; it is about being vulnerable, confronting mortality, and expressing the soul.
“Art does not heal by erasing suffering,” says Sharma, the psychiatrist. “It heals by giving us a container to hold suffering, so it does not destroy us. Poetry tells us we are not alone in our grief or our joy.”
If there is one lesson from history and science alike, it is that art is not a luxury but a necessity. It is as vital as food and shelter because it nourishes the psyche.
As schools cut arts programs and societies prioritize measurable productivity, experts warn of an emotional drought. “We cannot survive on economics alone,” Naqvi says. “We must remember that civilizations are remembered not by their GDPs but by their art, poetry, and songs.”
For every human heart that has ever broken, for every community that has ever endured loss, art has offered refuge. In poetry’s brevity, humans have always found vastness—an endless reminder that even in pain, beauty is possible.
And so, as wars rage, floods displace, and personal sorrows unfold, people will still write poems in notebooks, sing to themselves in kitchens, paint on walls, and tell stories in metaphors. For to be human is not only to live—but to create.
