What happens when grief feels too big for words? Poet and practitioner of poetic medicine Cyra Sweet Dumitru shares how losing her brother as a teenager shaped her life and how writing became her path toward healing.

Cyra Sweet Dumitru (http://www.cyrasweetdumitru.com/) is an accomplished poet, instructor of poetry writing, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine in Texas. Her poems have appeared on San Antonio’s City Hall walls, on buses, in museums, anthologies, and literary journals. She has four collections of poetry and a memoir told through prose and poetry, *Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother’s Suicide*, published through She Writes Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Cyra also leads therapeutic writing circles for people from all walks of life.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

- How Cyra’s grief after her brother’s suicide shaped her teenage years
- The role of poetry as a healing tool for trauma and loss
- What it means to practice “poetic medicine”
- How writing circles create community and safe spaces for healing

Timestamps

0:00 Intro and Matt’s reflection
1:00 Cyra’s teenage years and the day of her brother’s passing
15:00 The moment of “voice” and the threshold experience
28:00 How poetry became her healing practice
45:00 Writing as medicine for others
52:00 Reading from *Words Make a Way Through Fire*
56:00 Closing reflections

poetry healing, writing through grief, healing after suicide loss, Cyra Sweet Dumitru, Words Make a Way Through Fire, therapeutic writing, poetic medicine, creative healing, grief and creativity, suicide loss support

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