Inside Sharjah's 'Poetry Pharmacy', where healing comes in verses, not pills

Forget the ordinary pharmacy where you walk in and an attendant prescribes a drug, hands you a glass of water to swallow, and sends you on your way to relief. A one-of-its-kind pharmacy — where medicine is not swallowed but unfurled — is gaining traction.

At one of the stands at the ongoing 44th Sharjah International Book Fair in the UAE, poetry is being served in a pharmacy.

The Poetry Pharmacy is an innovative approach to appreciating poetry and wooing readers to develop interest in the art. It offers visitors “pills” containing poetry or verses from writers around the world.

Here, remedies are served in beautiful, jewel-toned capsules. From “poemcetamol,” to pills that drown exhaustion, those that offer “relief and understanding in confusing times,” those that mend broken hearts, and even those that give a dose of “Shakespeare love” are prescribed.

The walls of the Poetry Pharmacy are lined with shelves not of common medicine, but with meticulously labeled small glasses stuffed with notes bearing beautiful verses and poetry.

When one walks into the pharmacy, an attendant adorned in a white dust coat approaches you and asks what your soul craves or how you generally feel.

Before a prescription, the “phrasing pharmacist” hands you a capsule to taste how a dose works.

These granules, however, contain no powders as granules do — they contain a tightly rolled slip of paper.

Unlike other pharmacies where you ingest medicine to cure illness, here, you are expected to absorb the meaning.

The dosage is creative yet precisely written in a sentence or a stanza. The drill is to receive healing that “flows directly from the poet’s heart to your mind.”

“You read the note and let the words seep in,” a phrase pharmacist explained.

She adds that the poem “goes straight to the soul, instantly delivering the calm, comfort, or wild, untamed spark you need.”

Poetry Pharmacy founder Deborah Alma, a UK-based poet and editor, said the innovative approach aims at enhancing readers’ well-being while also serving as a literary prescription for the soul.

She says the initiative seeks to make reading not just an intellectual pursuit but also a therapeutic experience rooted in the restorative power of literature.

“In the UK, our bookshops are divided by emotional state, so you shop according to what you need. For instance, if you have a broken heart, there are books and other resources to help mend it,” Alma said in an interview.

“What you see here at the Book Fair is our poetry in pill bottles. Inside the capsule is a tiny scroll of paper with an extract from a poem to address that particular emotional state,” she added.

Once the phrase pharmacist writes a prescription based on your symptoms — say, a bottle of “Poemcetamol” or a dose of “Exhaustion” — you take out the capsule and carefully twist it open.

Here, every ailment of the spirit has a cure: from those whose hearts urgently need some loving, to those who need comfort, a dash of calmness, a boost of joy, or even remedies for emotional parts that scream for wildness.

While the pharmacy might look colorfully unique, it creatively displays the technical sciences behind words of healing.

At the phrase pharmacist’s counter are tools of trade that resemble those of old alchemist practitioners. Brass scales are meticulously placed on the counter to ensure the perfect dosage for dispensing.

The pharmacists use the scales to carefully measure the weight of the parchment used to ensure a perfect dose — whether for a broken heart needing first aid or a weary soul desperately seeking calm.

For the phrase pharmacists, every word must carry the correct dose.

Beside the scales rests the treasured Antique Pharmacist’s Diary, bound in brown leather that creatively displays “decades.”

Although speaking to a phrase pharmacist for a prescription is encouraged, the pharmacy offers options for self-diagnosis. Symptoms are creatively displayed on the counter.

Under the heading “Feeling Lost? Start Here,” elegantly scripted descriptions of spiritual ailments are arranged on the symptom display board. They even offer first-aid guidance for “days when you feel the world is too much with us.”

On the self-diagnosis board, one can also tell the kind of pills they would like to take home at Sh879 for 36 “capsules” in a small bottle or Sh2,100 for a bigger bottle.

For example, those in need of serenity and calmness can take chill pills or wild remedy pills. Those craving solace in times of sickness, loss, and grief can take comfort pills. Anyone needing courage, confidence, and authenticity can ingest the “Becoming pills.”

Those seeking to detox from social media have special detox pills, just as there are pills for writer’s block and other matters of the heart.