The Good Listening Project

Good listening is healing.

Listener Poet with a clinician.

 
 

Listener Poets cultivate resilience and wellbeing in healthcare.

 
 

Listener Poet finishing a poem on their typewriter.

 
 

We serve healthcare staff, medical students, patients, and caregiver communities through listening poetry.

 
 

Listener Poet creating a poem on their typewriter.

 

Learn more

 
 
 
 

Meet the Listener Poets

 
 

Where we listen

 

Why we listen

 
The impact this poetry experience had on me was phenomenal. It had a ripple effect that impacted so many more people in my life than just myself.

It helped me get through the day with ease, as if weight had been lifted off my shoulders that I didn’t even really know I had.
— Nurse
 

 

Explore our work

 

As Listener Poets, we create spaces where people can speak openly.

We then write poems inspired by our conversations to commemorate and celebrate these stories.

 
 
 
 

The ripple effect

 

The ripple effect of good listening fundamentally shifts how it feels to work with and care for others.

When thoughtful listeners hold space, people feel heard and understood, and the experience is often cathartic.

 
 

Listener Poet with a clinician.

 

What’s new

 
 

Poem for Our Future

We’re excited to present this co-created “Poem for Our Future.”

This is a collaboration of our community’s shared hopes for the future of healthcare.

 
 
 
 
 

Contact us

 

If you’d like to support good listening in your healthcare community, we would love to hear from you.

 
 
 

Anthology of poems and their origin stories from the Mayo Clinic Transform Conference.