The National Association for Poetry Therapy Presents

When Poems Come Alive

facilitated by Dr. Magdalene Jeyarathnam

Workshop Description:

This workshop is experiential and takes poetry and the poet off words and transforms it into action through psychodrama. Poems will be explored through roles, images, imagination, and encounters. We will engage with metaphors and inner experiences to explore how poems can transform into living experiences. The workshop is founded on creativity and spontaneity, the basic tenets of psychodrama. It offers a space for personal reflection, group process and shared human stories. Participants will experience how psychodrama can expand the therapeutic use of poetry by bringing poems into action, relationship, and embodied expression. No previous experience in psychodrama is required.

About the Facilitator:

Dr. Magdalene Jeyarathnam is an expressive arts therapist, psychodramatist, trainer, supervisor, and group psychotherapist from India with over 32 years of clinical and experiential practice. She is recognised as India’s first trained psychodramatist, trainer, and supervisor, and has worked with more than 15,000 individuals through therapy groups, workshops, training programmes, and community interventions. She started the first psychodrama training institute in India.

Her work integrates psychodrama, poetry, storytelling, movement, art, and other expressive arts approaches, with a strong focus on healing, spontaneity, creativity, and human connection. Magdalene has worked extensively with marginalized and vulnerable communities, while also training therapists, educators, students, and mental health professionals internationally. She worked as a WHO consultant to the South east Asian region for 3 years. She has conducted psychodrama workshops in approximately 14 countries. She is also a TEDx speaker.

Date:  Sunday, September 13, 2026

Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm (EDT)

Venue: Zoom

Host: Yun-Jen Lin  yunjen@poetrytherapy.org

Registration: 

           Members — $10

   Non-Members — $25

* Funds from our virtual events support our conference scholarship fund. 

mailto:yunjen@poetrytherapy.org