Description Ryu Si-hwa—poet known for the poetry collections "Even Though You Are Beside Me, I Miss You" and "The Love of the One-Eyed Fish," and for opening a new genre of the "curated poetry collection" with his aphoristic anthology "If I Knew Then What I Know Now"—has compiled a new poetry collection this time around the theme of Healing Poems. Healing Poems are a genre that emerged in the 21st century as various Western meditation centers began using poetry as a tool for healing the mind. It began when psychotherapists, recognizing that writing and reading poetry could serve as a powerful catalyst for opening closed hearts and healing wounds, formed small groups to try what is called "poetry therapy." The word "therapy" comes from the Greek, originally meaning healing through dance, song, poetry, and theater—that is, expressive art. Poetry therapy is a relatively unknown and new field of art, yet it is as old as the songs sung by tribal peoples gathered around campfires in primitive times. The songs, incantations, and poems of that era were themselves a process of healing the human mind and soul. Freud once said, "It was not I who discovered the unconscious, but the poets." The leading figure of the Healing Poem movement is Bill Moyers, a television journalist active in the United States. Through television discussions on "the healing power of poetry" with Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Joy Harjo, Naomi Shihab Nye, Octavio Paz, and others, he awakened people to the idea that "poets speak, on behalf of all of us, about the wounds that life brings, and we must listen to their words to access healing." Roger Housden, who holds poetry readings while touring England and America, also reads poetry from a healing perspective. His distinctive poetry commentaries, "Ten Poems to Change Your Life" and "Ten Poems to Open Your Heart," became bestsellers. Stephen Dobyns, a leading American poet and novelist, said this about Healing Poems: "I believe poetry, through its emotional, intellectual, and physical structure, reaches the reader's heart and makes the reader relive the experience. I think of poetry as a window between two rooms. Without that window, people would have to live alone in a dark room." Everyone has, within their heart, the ability to create poetry. That is, there is a "secret place" from which poetry emerges, and everyone has the capacity to enter that place naturally and comfortably. Poetry is often dismissed as a sentimental literary genre, but it is not sentiment—it is a question thrown at the human heart about this mysterious life. Through that question, poetry teaches us much about ourselves and the world. When people hear their own experiences spoken through another's mouth, they find comfort, realizing they are not alone in the world, and that all beings are connected. Poetry is written from the poet's personal experience, but it is a tool that helps the reader listen to their own story. In truth, poetry is telling the reader's own story. The poet is a wounded healer. American poet Mary Oliver said, "Poems are not words, but fire that melts the cold, a rope guiding the lost, bread for the hungry." This collection of healing and awakening poems, "Love As If You've Never Been Hurt," includes poems spanning 41 centuries, from ancient Egyptian papyrus scribes to Nobel Prize winners, by both famous and unknown poets across time. It features 77 poems by leading contemporary poets such as Mary Oliver, Wisława Szymborska, Jean Rousselot, Octavio Paz, and Ishikawa Takuboku; medieval Arab and Indian poets such as Rumi, Kabir, and Omar Khayyam; as well as Inuit poets, a Japanese clog-maker, and a Tibetan sage. Gathered over eight years since his aphoristic collection "If I Knew Then What I Know Now," these poems center on the themes of healing and awakening. Life is a constant stream of ailments and events, unwanted advice and noise. And loneliness...