The healing power of war poetry

Colonel Timothy Hodgetts, who is the Medical Director of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, will be publishing a book in March 2014 on war poetry. The book will gather some of the new poems he wrote during his missions in the Middle-East and in Europe. He is the only military man in England to have used war poetry to cure Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Two of the poems he wrote in the beginning of his career are displayed in the National Army Museum. 

This rewarded British Colonel has been exposed to terrorism and has directed emergencies operations from 1988 to 2013, particularly in Germany, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. He became the Medical Commander in the Rescue during the 1991 bombing in Northern Ireland when a bomb exploded at a military hospital while he was working there. He has an extensive experience in treating casualties in conflict and post-conflict insurgencies. 

During our interview, he underlined the importance of releasing the pain of all the horrific scenes he witnessed during his missions around the world. He has experienced Post-traumatic Stress and regularly describes the hardships he overcame through medical journals: “I write about it in medical journals, so that other people can learn about it, but it’s also a way to get it out of your chest”.  

A few years later, he found another way of releasing the emotionally charged and traumatic experiences he went through: “I have been writing war poetry for over 10 years and some of it is pretty dark,” he said. In deed, he wrote numerous poems during or sometimes after his missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to him, poetry is “a useful art form of war,” as it represents “reality”.

 In Britain he is the only military man who had the idea of writing war poetry to heal the scars of war. However, some of his fellow doctors decided to paint after coming back from war.

Here is the link to a video of Colonel Hodgetts reading his new poem “Dressing the dead”, which hasn't been published yet : http://youtu.be/g0CzdRRU__A

By Eugénie Lambert.