David,

     this is a complex question as I'm sure you're aware, but in general in working with us ill the trick is to get us to write (we're not good enough) while with us poets the trick is to get us to stop writing as that's how we deal with life.  You might find it interesting to compare Styron's depression book with _A Malignant Sadness or _The Noonday Demon?

    There also may be a difference in focus but I'm not sure I can verbalize this yet.

     I don't think the two are distinguishable easily in terms of quality of writing as you'll see if you try to look at something like the poems in _Beyond Bedlam_ (Anvil, 1997) http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/thought1.htm and try and figure out whether they were written by 'poets'.

tom

 

----- Original Message -----

From: David McCooey

To: [log in to unmask]

Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 7:03 PM

Subject: Re: biographical poetry

Tom,

I'm intrigued, though I'm not entirely sure what your describing. It sounds like you're talking about people who are ill writing about their own experiences. I'm more interested in biographical rather than autobiographical poetry, if partly because autobiographical poetry has received so much attention over the years. But are you also saying you know of biographical poetry about people who become ill?

        I'd be interested to hear more of your experiences with poetry as therapy. Can you make any generalizations about your patients' writing compared with professional poets who have written about being ill (The Man with Night Sweats comes to mind)?

Cheers,

David

       

David,

 

   I've been intriguedby 'illness' poetry for some time, but didn't realize until now that this is a typr of biographical poetry.  As someone who works on both ends of the specturm, both as a poetry therapist with the 'ill' who write and as a poet and critic with writers who become or are 'ill' it seems to me that biographical poetry covers the same range.  I'm wondering where and how distinctions might be made.

 

tom bell

 

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________________
Dr David McCooey
Lecturer in Literary Studies
Honours Co-ordinator
School of Literary and Communication Studies
Deakin University
Geelong
Victoria
Australia 3217

ph:  61 3 5227 1331
fax: 61 3 5227 2484
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