mental illness

How We Got Barb Back: The Story of My Sister’s Reawakening After 30 Years of Schizophrenia

farhana — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

“There is a truism in the mental health community that says that troubled families focus on the sickest member, even welcoming the sickness, to avoid dealing with other problems,” writes Margaret Hawkins on page 77. By this time, I had been fully introduced to her family and was struck by the truth of this statement.

Margy’s family story began as so many others did in the mid-twentieth century. Dad is a professional, Mom stays home with the children, three children live in a safe suburb, walk to school, argue with each other, and clamor for more freedom. From the outside, perhaps the most boundary-stretching part of their lives was the fact that the age gap between Margy and her older siblings was so large. Barb, the oldest, was eleven, and Tom was eight when she was born, so by the time Margaret was old enough to form any lasting impression of her sister, Barb was graduating from high school. It was during this time that Barb began slowly slipping into schizophrenia.

There were so many strikes against Barb at this point that it seems almost understandable that she fell through the cracks. She was leaving home to live on her own at college, her parents were suspicious of doctors, and mental illness was severely stigmatized in the 1950s and early 1960s. Somehow, Barb managed to graduate college, get married, and move to the Middle East with her husband for two years before her disability became unavoidable.

The story really gets going upon Barb’s return from Iraq when she moves back in with her parents and succumbs to the voices in her head. Her parents make very little attempt to get help for their eldest daughter, instead accommodating her need for isolation and ensuring that she never has to leave the house. This goes on until both parents are dead, nearly thirty years later.

Margy instantly springs into action, proving herself uncannily able to dig up resources to help Barb in the form of home visits from social workers and psychiatrists. She patiently but tenaciously continues to push her sister’s boundaries and is rewarded with an amazing realization that there is more of Barb inside than anyone ever realized.

This story is a testament to the power of love and persistence, patience, and compassion, and will leave you wondering if you just might be selling someone you know a little short because it makes life a little simpler.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, December 2nd 2010

In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (8/29/2010)

annette — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Washington, D.C.

“Please turn off anything that beeps, buzzes, or vibrates.” And with that comic admonishment to the audience, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Sarah Ruhl’s play about the advent of vibrators began.

The setting is Dr. Givings home, where his living room is located next to, and within earshot of, the “surgical theater.” Here, Dr. Givings (played by Eric Hissom) treats hysteria, a “medical ailment” dating back to about 300 BC, when Hippocrates thought women’s madness stemmed from their womb. Meanwhile, back on stage, the good doctor’s wife (Katie deBuys) wonders why patients come in with symptoms of anxiety and leave, only anxious to come back again—and soon.

Above the noise of “oh-ooh-oooh,” Dr. Givings himself groans about the bygone days of manual stimulation: “It was like a child’s game–trying to rub the head and the stomache at the same time.” Why, the procedure could take up to an hour! With the electric massager, “paroxyms” can be had within three to five minutes time and, if they don’t, um, come, Dr. Givings hands the tedious task over to his competent assistant Annie (played by Sarah Marshall).

While patients such as Mrs. Daldry (Kimberly Gilbert) and a male patient named Leo Irving (Cody Nickell) make it clear their emotional needs are not being met–Mrs. Daldry cannot have children and Mr. Irving cannot find the passionate love that his creative soul desires—the doctor steadfastly believes their symptoms can be treated with the latest technology of the day, the electromechanical vibrator for her and the anal dialater for him.

So the new device makes patients happier—so happy that Mrs. Givings breaks into the room and tries it out herself for her own hysteria–feeling unfulfilled in her marriage and inadequate in nourishing her newborn—but, alas it’s not fixing the problems.

Aside from having unmet emotional needs, women’s sexuality is still not recognized and even feared, as the men highlight in their joke about a friend that thought women looked like marble statues you see in a museum—and then ran like a mad man from his wife when he saw she had beastly hair “down there.” Only the wet nurse Elizabeth (played by Jessica Frances Dukes) hired to feed Dr. and Mrs. Givings’ baby, understands the connection between the vibrator and sexual pleasure. Otherwise, the technological wonder is thought to produce a confusing mixture of pain and pleasure. So confusing it brings them back daily to figure out if they like it or not!

Behavior like this and many other comedic opportunities make director Aaron Posner’s In the Next Room a humorous, but not insensitively so, play about the history behind the medical use of vibrators. It subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly highlights the utter lack of knowledge and understanding of women’s physical bodies, sexual desires, and emotional needs. It beautifully portrays women’s roles, relationships, and subordination to men during Victorian times and reminds us that even today, we still grapple with some of these issues. However, the play about vibrators will make an historical imprint itself—made many years after we laughed about the link between masturbation and mental illness in men-and will stimulate discussion of female sexuality for years to come.

Written by: Joan Dawson, September 22nd 2010

Louder Than Words: Marni

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Marni Bates

HCI Teens

Louder Than Words is a series aimed at teenagers about teenage experiences. Atypically, the volumes are also written by teenagers. It may seem bizarre to ask teenagers to write memoirs—as Marni says, her siblings laughed—but Louder Than Words is dedicated to “reinforce[ing] the message that the experiences of teenagers and their perceptions and beliefs regarding [their] experiences have validity.”

Marni Bates comes from a dysfunctional home. Her parents are estranged long before they divorced, and her sister is her rival. Young Marni wants to be loved, so she plays into the manipulative games her father contrives. The shocking realization that her father sees her as a tool, rather than a daughter to love, is the first of many sledgehammers to Marni's self-esteem.

Trichotillomania is a stress-related disorder. People pull their hair out as a means of coping, not unlike cutting or other forms of self-mutilation. Marni begins to pull at her eyebrows, taunted about her unibrow, a term she doesn’t even understand. Soon she is tugging out her eyelashes, her bangs, and the hair behind her ears. She knows she’s gone too far, but she can’t stop herself. Still, she hides the results of her pulling well, giving the disorder free reign over her mind and body.

Marni is a self-possessed young woman. Nineteen at the time of her writing, she has come to a mature understanding of herself and the other people in her life. Teenagers often are not given credit for having this kind of self-awareness, and many times they’re not given an opportunity to prove they have it.

There are a few points in Marni's story that seem slightly bent by her lingering emotion. For instance, her descriptions of her father are not at all kind—but this is to be expected of someone who is still living this period of her life. Marni continues to battle her disorder, and it is because of this that the book does not really have a proper ending. The story stops, but is not over.

Marni does not make false promises or pretend she has reached a happily ever after. This may be one of the best messages for teens: acknowledging that life is not a series of neatly packaged stories with beginnings, middles, and ends.

I blazed through this small book in a matter of hours. The writing is human, humbling, and honest. The Louder Than Words could do a lot of good in high school health classes. I know I would have been happy to read it.

Written by: Richenda Gould, December 21st 2009

The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Brian Dillon

Faber & Faber

Almost everyone knows someone they would describe as a hypochondriac—a friend or relative who is obsessed with ambiguous symptoms, or who hears about a disease and immediately fears they have contracted it. In contemporary pop culture, “hypochondriac” is frequently a pejorative term, and one who suffers from “health phobia” is commonly an object of mockery. The condition is sometimes confused in media portrayals with malingering or deliberate “faking.”

But hypochondria has not always been thought of as a mental problem. To the ancient Greeks, the hypochondrium was the region of the abdomen below the ribs. Ulcers and abdominal problems were once considered part of the “hypochondriac syndrome.” As the actual causes of such disorders were discovered, physical complaints without a clear cause continued to be labeled “hypochondriasis.”

The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives documents nine well-known “hypochondriacs” throughout history, and creates a narrative about how the diagnosis has evolved. A wide variety of medically recognized physical and mental issues have at one time been labeled hypochondria. What was labeled hypochondria in Daniel Paul Schreber might today be described as Cotard’s syndrome, or schizophrenia. The symptoms Andy Warhol experienced might now be called body dysmorphic disorder, a fascination with perceived flaws in one’s appearance.

Some of the nine individuals are more well-known than others. Most readers will probably be familiar with Charlotte Bronte, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Alice James, Marcel Proust, and Andy Warhol. But I had to Google James Boswell to learn that he is credited with reinventing the biography genre. Daniel Paul Schreber was a German jurist whose memoir of his mental illness became well-known after being analyzed by Sigmund Freud. Glenn Gould was a celebrated classical pianist, conductor, and broadcaster. Each individual viewed their “disease” differently, in accordance or in defiance of contemporary thinking.

Hypochondria was at one time considered the male counterpart to “female hysteria” (madness caused by the uterus). This may explain why hypochondria is frequently stereotyped as a problem affecting females. (In modern medicine, however, an equal number of men and woman are diagnosed with this condition.) The story of Charlotte Bronte implies that her troubling symptoms, and her resulting anxiety, may be connected to her frustration with the confinements of contemporary gender roles. Bronte was repeatedly discouraged from developing literary ambitions because of her sex, and this caused her considerable anguish. It is easy to see a parallel between hypochondria—symptoms with no clear cause—the “problem with no name” that Betty Friedan described in The Feminine Mystique.

The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives is best suited for readers who have personal experience with hypochondria. In the introduction, the author mentions that he has experienced some degree of hypochondria in his own life, but this is never elaborated upon. His fascination with the condition is apparent, and the diagnosis is explored in detail. The book is analytical, but does not advocate a particular approach to the disease or its treatment.

Written by: Kellie Powell, December 16th 2009

Another Life Altogether

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Elaine Beale

Spiegel & Grau

Elaine Beale crafts the engrossing coming-of-age and coming out story of Jesse Bennet in Another Life Altogether. Jesse lives on the northeast coast of England, one of the world’s fastest eroding coastlines. The constant threat of the breakdown of the cliffs is mirrored by Jesse’s mother’s constant threat of mental collapse. The book begins with her mother in Delapole, the local mental hospital, though Jesse tells her classmates that her mother is on a cruise; her hope is to impress a girl she has a crush on in her class. But when her mother is discharged, in an attempt to escape judgment and get a fresh start, her father moves them into a dilapidated house in a small village.

Jesse is desperate to begin her own new life at the new school somewhere higher in the pecking order. She gets her wish as she develops a friendship with Tracey, a girl with a mean streak and an older sister, Amanda, that Jesse falls for. With her unrequited love for Amanda, and a mother who spends most of her days and nights in bed, Jesse spends much of her time writing letters to Amanda that she never sends. The letters allow her an escape and provide an outlet for her feelings in a world where she feels no one understands her or cares about her.

The layers of life develop throughout the book as Jesse battles to reconcile what she thinks her life should be and what it actually is. She wrestles alone trying to understand her sexuality and steals a book from the local mobile library on homosexuality that still doesn’t help her reconcile her feelings towards Amanda to the fact that nearly everyone around her judges homosexuality as perverse and wrong. Her father ignores the stress and trauma of the family life, preferring to yell at the television, hoping that his wife will snap out of it, and assuming Jesse can carry on by herself. Jesse’s mother struggles with what seems to be bipolar disorder; manic at times and nearly catatonic at others, she is trapped by her own brain.

The idea that mental illness is something that can be shaken off like a blanket permeates the book; the mother wants to be better but can’t. Another theme throughout is the almost impossible cruelty that kids can inflict upon each other; regardless of the time period (the book is set in the 1970s), those who are different are relentlessly picked on.

At the book’s climax, I kept desperately hoping that Jesse would do the right thing. (Don't worry. I won’t spoil it for you!) And at the end of the book, while Jesse has changed and grown throughout, we see that her life still has to carry on. There is no happily-ever-after, but there is a waking up: an acknowledgment that appearances and popularity often mean nothing and that ignoring things won’t make them go away.

Another Life Altogether is an extraordinary true-to-life book, and Beale tells a number of important and poignant stories all at once with great skill.

Written by: Kristin Conard, December 3rd 2009

Blood Sistas: The Chronicals of Black Uptown Girlz Growing Up in the Hood

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:59:00 +0000

By Munesta Faulkner

Unique Expressions

As a White girl growing up in rural Wisconsin, I had no idea what city life was like. Post-college, I traveled, hoping to broaden my horizons and learn a bit about urban living. After that, I thought I had some pretty good ideas about what growing up in the city was like: living in an apartment, going to the laundromat, shopping at the small supermarket down the street, and hearing traffic and sirens twenty-four hours a day. After reading this book, I can tell you I know absolutely nothing about the intricacies of inner-city life.

Author Munesta Faulkner tells the story of best friends Sabrina, Rochelle, Gabriele, and Dominique. Personally, when I call someone a best friend, I mean that I trust, love, and share with that person. This is not the case in Blood Sistas. The four girls have turbulent relationships with one another, often involving hatred, betrayal, and revenge. Their friendship is put to the test again and again, forcing them to determine whether they are true friends (“blood sistas”) or not. Told from the point of view of Gabrielle, this extremely graphic story takes the reader on a journey complete with drugs, sex, swearing, mental illness, and violence.

If you are looking for an eye-opening fictional account of inner-city life, this book doesn’t leave anything out or cut any corners. From the front cover, featuring a gun, cash, and scantily-clad women, to the author’s heartfelt note on the final page, the story is intriguing and complex. However, if you are looking for a book with correct (or even consistent) spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure, this book cannot be recommended. For many readers, looking past technical mistakes is very difficult; few will push through the swamp of mistakes in this book to get to the story underneath. A good editor would have a great impact on this book.

Written by: Amanda Moss, November 8th 2009

Approaching Neverland: A Memoir of Epic Tragedy and Happily Ever After

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:18:00 +0000

By Peggy Kennedy

I think a lot of writers, regardless of genre, dislike it when people ask, “So, what’s your book about?” I think they dislike it because oftentimes the inquirer (whether a bar buddy, an aunt, or literary agent) cannot take the time to sit down and feel the emotional pulse of the work. What they really want is for the writer to give them the SparkNotes version, the blurb, or the pitch. Then after the writer has sterilized, politicized, and dissected his or her work into socially relevant terms, or sensationalized the hell out of its plot points, the inquirer decides whether or not it’s worth their time.

Good memoirs, such as Peggy Kennedy’s Approaching Neverland, are usually ones that divulge personal issues discussable in broader cultural contexts. I wouldn’t say this book is about the stigmatization or (mis)treatment of mental illness over the post-war decades, or even about the writer's coping with her mother’s mental illness. I wouldn’t say it is about how she and her family handled taboo issues, including infidelity, abortion, discovering sexual identities, AIDS, or any number of other juicy topics that recur throughout. Kennedy writes with such sincerity, and pulls the reader so close to her characters, that to try to compartmentalize and brand them with labels seems a disservice. By the end of the book, Kennedy has made the reader feel like one of the family, so I want to avoid even the politically correct pigeonholing of her beloved ones.

Of course, the English language is limited. Time is money and, as feminist activist (there’s that pesky, inevitable labeling) Carol Hanisch said, “the personal is political.” So what is the book about? To use Kennedy’s words, “Death and life and sorrow and joy circling round and round in an eternal dance of being.”

Okay, instead of belaboring what the book is or isn’t really “about,” I will say that Approaching Neverland is worth reading, re-reading, and sharing with others because it is beautifully human. The writing is earnest and palpable. The family’s strengths, vulnerabilities, tragedies, and joys will have the reader crying at the bottom of one page, smiling by the top of the next, then crying and smiling by the bottom again. Basically it will make you one hot mess, so if reading in public, keep a tissue handy.

The bond among Kennedy’s family is solid, and so is the one she creates between the reader and her story. Reading Approaching Neverland is an emotional excavation, as well as an important reminder that people are worth much more than their labels and some books are worth much more than their blurbs.

Written by: Emily Seibert, September 20th 2009

Atmospheric Disturbances

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:42:00 +0000

By Rivka Galchen

Picador

In some cases, you may be midway through a story, novel, or film before realizing you’re dealing with an unreliable narrator. He or she is biased, withholding information, or mentally unstable. (Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s disturbing story “The Yellow Wallpaper” springs to mind as just one example.) In Atmospheric Disturbances, the debut novel by Rivka Galchen, it is apparent early on that the main character, psychiatrist Dr. Leo Liebenstein, is off his rocker. Perhaps that’s putting it too strongly. Liebenstein is delusional, but his delusion is at first confined to one specific aspect of his life: he is convinced that his wife Rema has been replaced by a double, who he terms a simulacrum.

As Liebenstein sets out to “find” his wife in a very roundabout manner, we learn how they met at the Hungarian Pastry Shop in Upper Manhattan shortly after Rema arrived in the U.S. from Argentina. We also learn that she is now a translator at the same hospital where Liebenstein works and we are told about one of Liebenstein’s patients, Harvey, who is convinced he is a secret agent of the Royal Academy of Meteorology. The Academy, he believes, is able to manipulate weather and must act against mysterious forces that would use meteorological phenomena for their own purposes.

While treating Harvey, at Rema’s suggestion, Liebenstein decided to play along with Harvey’s version of the world and pretend to be an agent of the Academy as well, a higher-ranking one passing orders along. To make the story convincing, Liebenstein and Rema chose the name of a scientist at the Royal Academy, Tzvi Gal-Chen, who was supposedly issuing Harvey instructions through his therapist. The ruse works and Liebenstein is able to keep Harvey from leaving town without warning by telling him that his assignment is to monitor the New York weather. But now, just hours before the simulacrum appears, he has gone missing. As Liebenstein ponders the meaning of Rema’s doppleganger and how he can find the real Rema, he becomes increasingly obsessed with Tzvi Gal-Chen, believing that his meteorological publications contain instructions that will lead him to Rema. As Liebenstein becomes more and more part of the world Harvey has constructed, the reader must ask, what is the distance between patient and healer? A friend noted that the book calls into question everyone’s perceptions of reality, and in a way that’s true. For example, Rema and her mother have different opinions of what happened to Rema’s father, both plausible, and neither woman seems delusional. Perhaps one of them is in denial, or perhaps they really don’t know. Later, Rema’s overheard telephone conversation reveals her perception of her husband, which differs from her mother’s and probably his own.

Galchen, herself a psychiatrist, writes with an ease and an eye for detail that draw the reader in. While the focus of the story is narrow and there are only a handful of characters, the writing is playful and smart. The reader delights in finding clues as to Liebenstein’s behavior and personality and gaining insight into his character. And while we become frustrated with the errant doctor, his devotion to his wife and her real feelings for him keep us reading.

I found myself exasperated and touched by Liebenstein. His dependence on Rema to ground him is apparent and he describes almost every woman he meets in comparison to Rema. He is also kindhearted in his own strange way, noting that it was wrong of him to leave the simulacrum without a word. His empathy towards her, all while refusing to accept her evidence that she is, in fact, the real Rema, is heartbreaking. Galchen’s prose expresses his longing: “Her voice in the dark, so familiar—is was almost as if Rema was actually there with me, in the absence of luminosity, and maybe she really was there, paying me a visitation.” Seeking Rema has become a kind of holy quest.

Atmospheric Disturbances ends without resolving the questions it raises about Liebenstein’s sanity, Harvey’s strange reappearance, or the existence of Tzvi Gal-Chen. In another novel this might be unsettling, but in this case the beauty of the prose offers the completion that is lacking in the plot. A beautifully written, original debut.

Written by: Karen Duda, July 17th 2009

United States of Tara

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:38:00 +0000

By Diablo Cody

Showtime

For those who might have been living in a remote village in the Amazonian jungle in 2007, Diablo Cody is an Oscar-winning screenwriter whose debut success, Juno, is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Its witty repartee and kooky characters were what made it so exceptional. Now, at Stephen Spielberg’s suggestion, Cody has written a television script that takes up everything we loved about Juno and combines it with superb acting to create a fabulous half-hour series that centers around the main character’s dissociative identity disorder (DID), which is the more recent name for multiple personality syndrome) and the chaos that having many people associated with one body causes in the family.

The impressive cast is composed of Toni Collette (Tara), John Corbett (husband Max), Keir Gilchrist (son Marshall), Brie Larson (daughter Kate), and Rosemarie DeWitt (sister Charmaine). Toni Collette actually plays a number of different characters, her alters. She is, at once, T, a lustful rebellious adolescent who curses and sulks; Alice, a 1950s Stepfordesque wife who bakes, cleans, and acts demure; and Buck, a trailer-trashy Vietnam vet who smokes and loves porn—among other alters. (I must leave you something to discover!) Toni Collette is outstanding in her acting, convincingly changing from one character to another in a matter of seconds. In general, the performances are first-rate, and there are some entertaining secondary roles, especially Kate’s two love interests, the emo samurai (Shiloh Fernandez) from the first few episodes, as well as her creepy boss at Barnabee's (Nathan Corddry).

Cody’s script is very well written, witty, subtle, and never over-the top. She deals in a straight-forward way with complex issues such as homosexuality (Marshall is gay), mental illness, and religious fundamentalism (there is a storyline around Marshall’s participation in a Hell House). All the main characters raise some ambiguities concerning Tara’s disorder (is it a true illness or intentional acting out?), and the Showtime website contains a didactic element that provides information concerning DID, a very controversial issue.

Beyond the instructive aspect, however, a quitely overt feminist message is evident in the series. The show starkly reveals a few of the never-ending roles many women are faced with in their daily lives. What woman has not had to “play” several roles, whether it be model homemaker, friend to her teenage daughter, companion to her disaffected husband, and just plain Mom? It is an ingenious ruse to disguise these roles as different personalities of the same woman, but not a far stretch of the imagination. The potential danger of the show turning a woman’s complex nature into a stereotypical hysterical mental case is done away with. Far from a rigid depiction of these seemingly traditional gender roles, the alters’ stereotypical character traits are efficiently nuanced by their interactions with other characters.

The half-hour format often seems too short when one is watching the series on television, but the constant plot twists and turns are sure to keep you watching for hours.

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, June 16th 2009

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:39:00 +0000

By Elyn R. Saks

Hyperion

We rarely have the opportunity to hear from people diagnosed with schizophrenia. As a result, the disease remains misunderstood and maligned, confused with multiple personality disorder, and the butt of several jokes. In writing The Center Cannot Hold, Elyn Saks has, in part, set out to remedy this, and she has acquitted herself most admirably.

Saks’s life is an interesting one. Raised in Miami, Florida, she exhibited, as she can recall, a few early signs of the disorder in high school and in college, but her first serious break arrived while she was getting her Master’s degree at Oxford University. That year, Saks experienced both a stay in a mental hospital and her first relationship with a talk therapist. (The latter is a treatment she strongly advocates, although it is relatively rare to see it used to treat schizophrenia.) The stark detail in which Saks limns her schizophrenic breaks brings the reader immediately into her mind, yet the tone of the writing is so matter-of-fact that Saks’s mind, the mind of a woman both brilliant and deeply mentally ill, does not seem at all unusual. This is her gift as a writer: emotions, mental disorders, therapeutic relationships, and love are all treated as facts, not as things to fight or justify, but simply as the truths of a life. Saks makes schizophrenia real to her readers, as it has always been to her.

The pillars, and the beauty, of Saks’ story are the relationships she has created in her life and shows to her readers: relationships with therapists are portrayed as clearly, and with as much significance, as those with her close friends, her family, and later her husband. Love, Saks demonstrates, is a powerful stabilizing force, even in the face of the inevitable devastation that mental illness brings. In addition, Saks has used her academic work and interests to center herself since her youth, and as readers watch, Saks become what she is today: a professor of legal philosophy tremendously respected in her field, specializing in the legal rights of the mentally ill. We see that her work, the academic niche she has created for herself over time, has come to a graceful symbiosis with her acceptance of her illness. As she advocates, as a passionate writer and thinker, for others like her who have fewer resources, she comes to accept the role that her schizophrenia has played, and will always play, in her life, and also clarifies for herself that it is not the only defining factor.

The Center Cannot Hold is a bold, disturbing, compelling, original book. Elyn Saks is telling a story rarely heard, and she does so with uncommon skill and style.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, October 17th 2008

Emergency Contact

admin — Mon, 07 May 2007 01:36:00 +0000

By Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

McGilligan Books

If there is a politic of poetry at stake in Emergency Contact, it stems as much from the a politicized urban landscape, as it does from the poetic representation of that setting. Against the familiar backdrop of a neighbourhood in the process of an irrevocable gentrification, Ziniuk records the objects, people and small hi-stories―perhaps otherwise unregistered―of Toronto’s west end neighbourhood Parkdale. This is not nostalgia for an idea of authenticity via poverty, but a poetic document that condemns both the past ―remembering “the holiday season when the notorious…landlords” abandoned “31 floors of families without heat or electricity for almost a week”―and the future, symbolized by the novelty shop that sells “$30 felt-letter shirts claiming “Parkdale is for Lovers.” Without an acceptable past or future, Ziniuk carves out a space in the present to search for something “more long-term than Emergency,” something that is markedly aware of the problems of contingent plans and temporary solutions (“I live my life in increments./ Trish says we should stop that.”)

Collected into four parts, this is poetry to be reckoned with. It tackles political themes like poverty, gentrification, mental illness, gender and substance abuse through a ferociously poetic vision that handles themes of love, loss and identity with as much conviction. Participating in those age-old questions about the social and political obligations of poetry, Ziniuk reminds us that “people who decide their politics are also, usually also/ the ones to leave them,” and that “anarchy is not inherently against love.”

This is poetry as the expression of a personal politics that won’t allow itself the complacency of obvious definitions yet still grants us “our distinct ability to identify one another.” The question Ziniuk seems to ask is “based on what?” The politics presented in this collection resist the facility of either/or definitions and refuse a homogeneous signification of identity even (and especially) if identity politics is central.

Idealism ends fast. I am peeling stickers that say 'Feminists Fuck Better' and 'Violence Against Women, No Excuse' off my coffee table. Not that I don’t still believe it, I just don’t need the stickers anymore.

This reluctance to buy into the rhetoric of stickers, trademarked revolutions and marketing ploys rather than the substance of a political position has particular importance at the local sex worker drop-in centre, where Jane Doe is “not here simply for the good of/ the hookers.” Rather she is a “confident, capital ‘F’ feminist, card-carrying” utterly different from the girls living “outside the system without/a card to say they’ve politics, or a joke to explain/ themselves with” and utterly foreign to the poet and politics defined by Emergency Contact.

Written by: Kate Morris, May 6th 2007

Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:59:00 +0000

By Tiny (a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia)

City Lights Books

We never hear from the poor. They are simply not represented in public life. Perhaps it is because we don't think they deserve to have a say. After all, one of the strongest myths in American society is that any person can succeed as long as she is willing to work hard and never give up. What I like about Criminal of Poverty is that the writer, Tiny, a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia, proves that is simply not the case.

In her gripping, although often awkwardly written, memoir, Tiny portrays her formative years growing up with her mother, Dee, as a very tumultuous time since they lived in grimy apartments, motels or in their car. She was unable to attend school because Dee was mentally ill – agoraphobia – and relied on her daughter to take care of the most basic tasks of survival, including securing housing, healthcare and community services. At certain points, Tiny even manages her mother's personal relationships with men because these boyfriends can help them survive by providing rent or food money.

Dee is an artist, and it is through this expression that she and her daughter cope with their struggles. She and Tiny come up with creative ways to make art and money by opening up a fashion clothing business, but, ultimately, it is Tiny who ends up doing most of the work, especially after Dee's avant-garde clothes are not selling, and they have to switch to cartoon-based designs for their covert t-shirt business. During this time, Dee's agoraphobia is worsening, and she is unable to fulfill many responsibilities required for the smooth running their operation. Because of Dee's utter dependence, Tiny has no time where she doesn't have to worry about money and having a place to sleep at night.

Throughout Criminal of Poverty, Tiny seems to carefully emphasize how much she respects her mother and does not blame Dee for loss of childhood; it is the system that puts women in such a powerless position that they are forced to make bad decisions. I believe Tiny wants to feel this way, and maybe even mostly does; yet in some places I could feel the tension in her writing between the pain she felt as a young woman and the carefully distanced writer of today. Assigning the blame of her living conditions to the system is deserved, but it doesn't always make for the best reading. Sometimes Tiny's careful protection of Dee got in the way of the narrative because this doesn't allow the reader to make one’s own judgments.

A dense book, Tiny writes with very little dialogue and scene, nor does she often refer to the settings, which are Los Angeles, Fresno and the San Francisco Bay Area. Instead, her writing style is very reflective and analytical; she describes what happens and what the consequences are, which doesn't make for a quick read. Although this book is not gracefully written overall, there are a few passages that stand out as exceptional and the story trumps any writing flaws because it is simply compelling. I was left with a few questions after the last chapter, not completely sure if the cycle of poverty was finally over, but I liked this open ending because it gives me space to think about how the term poor is defined and what wealth really means, not only for American society, but also for me.

Written by: Logan Perkes, April 17th 2007