Can poetry make us less lonely? Does reading poems have any real power to comfort or heal people? Most people encounter poetry as a solitary experience, reading alone and in silence, so it’s not obvious why poems would bring us closer to our communities or ease loneliness. Surely it’s better to put down the books and go out into the world?

Those who answer no might point to the theory that poetry resonates with an individual’s emotional state (let’s say loneliness), helping them to come to terms with and process how they’re feeling. Support for this theory has sparked a ‘poetry therapy movement’, in which individuals suffering from all manner of conditions, from chronic pain to anxiety, are prescribed, of all things, a poem.

Among the advocates of this movement is the founder of the Forward Prizes for Poetry, and chairman of the Somerset House Trust, William Sieghart CBE, whose book The Poetry Pharmacy prescribes the following poem for loneliness:

I wish I could show you
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

This passage is taken from My Brilliant Image by the Persian poet Hafez, and it’s an interesting choice because it doesn’t address loneliness from the first-person (i.e. ‘I am lonely’) but instead takes the perspective of one who is addressing the lonely. It’s far from clear how reading this poem could help someone suffering from loneliness; in fact, it runs counter to the advice from mental health charities who suggest people put themselves in social spaces, begin making connections through groups and befriending schemes, or try talking therapies as ways of treating loneliness.In all of these cases, the treatment is to physically interact with people, rather than remaining alone.

‘Solitude can become loneliness; this happens when all by myself I am deserted by my own self’.

To understand this seeming contradiction, it’s useful to unpack the distinctions between loneliness and solitude. While loneliness is understood as a negative emotional response bringing with it a host of damaging psychological and even physiological effects, solitude is viewed more positively as a state of being, often associated with reflection. Though seemingly very different, the line between solitude and loneliness is very thin. Hannah Arendt argues that ‘solitude can become loneliness; this happens when all by myself I am deserted by my own self’.

So if it’s possible to stray from solitude into loneliness, is it also possible to pass from loneliness into solitude? And does My Brilliant Image help readers do just that? Despite the use of the second person, Hafez’s poem invites the reader to take up both the first person and second person perspective within the poem, facilitating a self-address (speaking to oneself as a way of being company for oneself), and re-establishing the self-companionship to which Arendt referred.

But does this companionship constitute a fully-fledged treatment for loneliness? I don’t think so.

Connecting with oneself is only the first step to relieving loneliness, and while self-addresses may help us feel at ease with our aloneness, they can’t help us feel connected with other people.