Wordcatcher publishing
Category:
Poetry
Concerning mental health issues, Problems & Polemics follows on from to be like John Clare, about which was said...
"...the language is clear. He manages to demystify psychiatry, its processes and management, and invoke strong emotional responses. ...what strikes is the poet's genuine compassion for the plight of those stripped of dignity, of belonging..." Poetry Quarterly Review #6
"...Combining a persuasive polemic with lyrical prose poetry... adopts a language that is considered and a lyricism that is crafted... this work is a unique insight into the sad reality of mental illness... Smith's power lies in his simplicity and sincerity..." Somerset County Gazette 14.2.97.
"...These poems, which tell directly, honestly and with unsentimental compassion, of the daily lives of the patients and those whose task it is to care for them, are very powerful... This is an impressive collection of poetry, skilful, often quiet, sometimes shocking and well worth getting to grips with." SCENE
Most Often
First and foremost, for most of us,
the mentally ill are unpredictable
- in so far as we have come to expect
reactions from a whole range of people
who are said not to be mentally ill.
The different are always considered dangerous;
danger equals excitement; thus the different
come to attract and repel in equal measure.
Those writers of fiction, who are unconsciously
confident of their sanity, exploit this
inner otherness. Not, though, to depict
mental illness. No, their use becomes
a celebration, a glamourisation of insanity
- exotic as a tropic to a temperate people
(yet, as we all know, in humdrum hot places
ordinary people try to live ordinary lives).
These writers only use madness to free themselves
from the constraints of the normal, madness
allowing them to ditch imprisoning expectations
of plot and stereotyped character (such use
becoming a display, note, not of imagination,
but of its lack). On their pages the demented
and the deranged can safely threaten an everyday
accepted view of life - everything in its place
and all's well with an unequal world. Yet,
most often, the mentally ill will seek
unqualified acceptance within the very status quo
that the campaigning writer of fictions
wants changed.
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