Twenty-two papers by different authors consider poetry therapy as treatment for persons with emotional disorders. Its use with the following is described: a psychotic patient, hospitalized schizophrenics, psychoneurotics in a mental health center, and disturbed adolescents. Also discussed are poetry as therapy and as a therapeutic art, principles of poetry therapy, the validation of poetry as a group therapy technique, and poetry as communication is psychotherapy. The use of poetry in individual psychotherapy and in a private mental hospital is described, as are poetry therapy in a self help group, in a specialized school for the disturbed, and in a counseling center. Further topics include poetry as a way to fuller awareness, metamessages and self discovery, the Psalms as psychological and allegorical poems, the universal language of rhythm, the patient's sense of the poem, and a curriculum proposal for training poetry therapists. A tribute to Eli Greifer, a pioneer in therapeutic poetry, is included, as is an appendix listing poems suitable for use in therapy poetry. (LE)