the healing powers of poetry

Yesterday at the bookstore:

A shabby man was just here. He was unbathed but smiling. I showed him where the poetry section is. When he was ready to check out, he had stuck the book in his bag. He said, "I'm sorry, I'm handicapped and I sometimes have trouble doing things in the right order," he smiled and showed me the contents of the bag without my asking him so I could be sure he hadn't taken any other books. "That's what I need this poetry book for, to reverse these symptoms."

I love that idea. What if every ailment could be cured by reading just the right thing? Any heart problems would be relieved by reading poetry. Problems with your bowels? Read a kids book. Stomach problems? Take two literary novels and call me in the morning. And if that were true, would bad writing be like bad drugs?

Or maybe I'm approaching this all wrong... Perhaps poetry is the only prescription writing and all other writings are the shamanic and recreational drugs. In a society like that, poets would be as revered as doctors.