An essay I wrote about poetry groups I ran at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility outside of Boston.

In the Winter the view from McLean Hospital can be quite beautiful. Perched on top of a hill over the sedate town of Belmont, Mass., the alluring sparkle of the city lights of Boston create a brilliant panorama stretching across the horizon. One would not ordinarily  look for such a scene at a psychiatric hospital. Perhaps it is not surprising then, that on these grounds poets such as: Robert Lowell, Slyvia Plath and Anne Sexton found comfort and even inspiration. Here they were safe from the manic highs and lows, the tumult, and the stresses of the city only five miles away.

 

Times have changed since that august group of Poets paced the hall at McLean Hospital. The population of the hospital is dramatically different now than Anne Sexton's and Lowell's time. Lowell describes the patrician atmosphere at the hospital in his poem "Waking In The Blue":

"What use is my sense of humor?

I grin at Stanley, now sunk in his sixties

once a Harvard all-American fullback

if such were possible!

still hoarding the build of a boy in his twenties...

 

A kingly granite profile in crimson golf-cap

worn all day, all night

he thinks only of his figure

of slimming on sherbert and ginger-ale

more cut off from words than a seal."

 

Lowell's piece describes life at Mclean more than forty years ago. Now on the wards of the hospital we have the homeless, Medicare clients, along with the students and the ocassional VIP. On a unit I worked on in the past, a unit with acutely ill patients; a poetry group thrived on Friday evenings. For ten years I worked with patients in a sometimes fustrating but often rewarding effort. I remember in the first group I ran, I read  Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" I thought this haunting cry of a poem would act as a stimulant for discussion. Unfortunately patients in this seminal group did not want to hear Ginsberg's lament about the "best minds of his generation lost to madness." I remember one patient telling me bluntly " Why do I have to hear this? I live it." There were other mishaps in the early days of the group. Once I read a poem that concerned chickens. A young woman suddenly became hysterical and ran from the group in a fit of tears. The rest of the group followed her in support. It seems that the girl associated fowl with a particurally painful episode in her life. Needless to say I had some explaining to do to my supervisor. I can remember a clinically depressed Harvard grad. student thanking me for a particular passage from a poem I read because it shed light on his situation and gave him a degree of hope. I recall an almost mute patient suddenly start to wax eloquently after I read a stanza of Eliot's "Wasteland" One thing is certain: the right poem at the right time can certainly evoke strong reactions and even act as a balm in a time of great stress.

 

The material I used in the group was always quite accessible. I am an avid reader and contributor to the small press, so I used little magazines like Ibbetson Street, Poesy, Spare Change News and others to good effect. I encouraged patients to bring in their favorite poems, or ones they wrote themselves. I encouraged all members of the group to be supportive and positive toward each other's work. Over the years I developed a community of patient poets. For the last year or so I have worked in a different setting and different capacity at the hospital. I don't run a formal poetry group currently, but I still take patients to readings at "The Out of The Blue Gallery" in Cambridge, Mass. when time permits. And still, when I walk around the grounds of McLean I am often greeted by former group members, " Hey Doug, when's the next poetry group?"

This article originally appeared in "The Boston Poet" 1997. It has been updated. later appeared in "Kaldiescope" magazine.