Inside Sharjah's 'Poetry Pharmacy', where healing comes in verses, not pills

Deborah Alma, a UK-based poet. She is the founder of Poetry Pharmacy.[Caroline Chebet/Standard]

Forget the ordinary pharmacy where you walk in and an attendant prescribes a drug, hands you a glass of water to swallow, and sends you on your way to relief. A one-of-its-kind pharmacy — where medicine is not swallowed but unfurled — is gaining traction.

At one of the stands at the ongoing 44th Sharjah International Book Fair in the UAE, poetry is being served in a pharmacy.