Valium Val holds the floor. She confides in their voices That speak to the hills. ("Group Therapy")There are catatonic women holding dolls. There are men hanging themselves. There are women licking the wallpaper. There is a boy flapping at the wall ("like a nervous cockatiel"). And there are, everywhere, people who simply don't 'fit'. For, as Knight makes clear in this work, the asylum wasn't only a place for those who were clinically insane. It was also a halfway house for the misfit. Given enough shock therapy, drugs (Largactil, Valium, Thorazine), and isolation, the world tightens into an almost psychotic point:
After weeks of bromide and psychiatric bungling. my mind is controlled by the number of bowls full of custard I can steal from the serving table; ("Looking After Number One")This is a terrifying world to find oneself in: walking a medicated line from sanity to insanity and back again. The divide is blurred in this book, partly because of the poet's egalitarian eye: there is no "us" and "them". Everyone is hurting, and everyone is both utterly sane, and absolutely mad. Postcards from the Asylum presents a powerful picture of life inside an asylum – tender, warm, loving and fierce all at once.
Irrespective of the fascinating subject matter, these poems are also objectively and individually good. Each one delivers its denouement with little words. In "Flower Delivery", the relationship between art and life is explored as the poet crafts dozens of rosebuds from nothing: "their petals flushed/anticipating full bloom/miles from any florist". The poetry works in sibilant rhythms, onomatopoetically drawing the reader into that black fog of depression that comes with extended winter: "Like a fog snake/it sheds its skin/trails a giant smudge through the city". ("Winter Solstice".) When the end finally comes, the poet finds herself free, but there's no longer a clean break between inside and outside. It's a wrought journey full of laughter, horror, hunger and self-discovery.
Postcards from the Asylum is published by Pardalote Press.
Article comments
1 - Juliann Mitchell
Great review! I am going to order the book tonight. Thanks for making me want to further explore her work.
2 - tink
Poetry seems to be a lost artform, archaic at best for many. Your review brings to life a piece of work that is universal in it's theme.
Excellent!!
3 - Maggie Ball
Thanks Tink. Of course I completely disagree with the the idea of poetry being a lost artform or archaic (at best or worst). I read a lot of poetry and much of it is very accessible, powerful, and as utterly relevant to life in 2008 as anything I read (and I'm always reading!).
For a fascinating, really dynamic discussion around poetry (including readings from Postcards) with Karen Knight and also Joel Deane, a young, utterly trendy poet (his day job is political writer for the Australian Labour Party's Victorian Premier) whose Magisterium I also reviewed here, drop by.
I promise you you'll think differently about poety after listening to the show. Maggie
4 - tink
Hi Maggie!
My statement is in regards to how I feel the genre is perceived as a whole to many (even avid) readers. From early schooling and on, here in the states, I think it is seen as the lesser stepchild to other styles of writing. Unless one digs deeper of their own accord, the standard set within our educational system basically begins and ends with metric verse that rhyme. Sad but true, in my childhood as well as what is currently being taught to my many nieces and nephews.
Me? I think it can be found widespread and sometimes in the most unusual forms and places.
5 - Maggie Ball
Agreed! And it's certainly the lowest selling of all writing arts. Do please listen to the podcast, as Karen, Joel and I have a good old discussion around this topic.
6 - Mary K. Williams
Very nice review Maggie