A Mind Apart: Poems of Melancholy, Madness, and Addiction

by Mark S Bauer

Overview

"Much madness is divinest sense," wrote Emily Dickinson, "And much sense the starkest madness." The idea that poetry and madness are deeply intertwined, and that madness sometimes leads to the most divine poetry, has been with us since antiquity. In his critical and clinical introduction to this splendid anthology—the first of its kind—psychiatrist and poet Mark S. Bauer considers mental disorders from multiple perspectives and challenges us to broaden our outlook. He has selected more than 200 poems from across seven centuries that reflect a wide range mental states—from despondency and despair to melancholy, mania, and complete submersion into a world of heightened, original perception. Featuring such poets as George Herbert, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, Weldon Kees, Lucille Clifton, Jane Kenyon, and many others, A Mind Apart has much to offer those who suffer from mental illness, those who work to understand it, and all those who value the poetry that has come to us from the heights and depths of human experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195336412
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/14/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mark S. Bauer is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Harvard South Shore Psychiatry Residency Training Program. He has published well over 100 scientific articles and book chapters, and four other books. His poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals in the US, UK, and Australia, and he is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Imperial Days and The Gnarled Man Rises.

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroductionPoemsThomas Hoccleve (1368/9-c.1426)from "Hoccleve Remembers His Madness"from "Anxious Thought"Charles d'Orleans (1394-1465)I am ForsakenFarewell this WorldWilliam Dunbar (1460-1520)In WinterAlexander Barclay (1475-1552)from "Ship of Fools"Anonymous (published 1500)A Song of AleAnonymous (published 1500)Petition to Have Her Leave to DieFulke Greville (1554-1628)from "Despair"Thomas Lodge (1557-1625)MelancholyWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616)Sonnet 129Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639)Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's WifeA Hymn to God in a Night of My Late SicknessJohn Davies (1569-1618)AfflictionRobert Burton (1577-1640)The Author's Abstract of MelancholyJohn Fletcher (1579-1625) and/or Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)MelancholyLady Mary Wroth (1586-1652)Sonnet VI from iPamphilia to Amphilanthus/iSonnet XIX from iThe Countess of Montgomery's Urania/iRobert Herrick (1591-1674)The Mad Maid's SongGeorge Herbert (1593-1633)Affliction IAffliction IVThe CollarJohn Milton (1608-1674)from "Samson Agonistes"Methought I saw my late espoused SaintAnn Bradstreet (1612-1672)Upon Some Distemper of the BodyMargaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1624-1674)A Discourse on MelancholyThomas Traherne (1636-1674)SolitudeJames Carkesse (published 1679)On the Doctors' Telling Him that till He Left off Making Verses He was Not Fit to Be DischargedAnonymous (published 1658)On MelancholyAnne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720)The Spleen: A Pindaric PoemEdward Ward (1667-1731)The Extravagant Drunkard's WishIsaac Watts (1674-1748)The Hurry of the Spirits, in a Fever and Nervous DisordersEdward Young (1683-1765)from "Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality: Night I"William Harrison (1685-1713)In Praise of LaudanumMary Barber (1685-1755)On seeing an Officer's Widow distracted, who had been driven to Despair by a long and Fruitless Solicitation for the Arrears of her PensionAnonymous (published 1692)Loving Mad TomMatthew Green (1696-1737)from "The Spleen. An Epistle to Mr. C—-J—-"William Collins (1721-1759)Ode to FearThomas Mozeen (published 1768)The BedlamiteChristopher Smart (1722-1771)Hymn to the Supreme Beingfrom "Jubliate Agno"Thomas Warton (1728-1790)from "The Pleasures of Melancholy"William Cowper (1731-1800)Lines Written During a Period Of InsanityThe Shrubbery, Written in a Time of AfflictionAnonymous (published 1733)A Receipt to Cure Love's FitRobert Fergusson (1750-1774)Ode to DisappointmentAnonymous (published 1751)Strip Me Naked, or Royal Gin for Ever. A PictureThomas Chatterton (1752-1770)Sunday, A FragmentJohn Codrington Bampfylde (1754-1796)On a Frightful DreamWilliam Blake (1757-1828)My Spectre around me night and dayTo Mr. Butts, Gr. Marlborough St. London; from iLetters, A Selection/iMaryMad SongWilliam Bloomfield (1766-1823)from "The Farmer's Boy"Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)The Suicide's ArgumentThe Pains of Sleepfrom "Dejection: An Ode"Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)from "Lament of Tasso"Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)Stanzas Written in Dejection Near NaplesJohn Clare (1793-1864)I AmSonnet: I AmThe Ruins of DespairTo MelancholySongJohn Keats (1795-1821)Ode on MelancholyAnonymous ("Orestes") (published 1796)A Sonnet to Opium: Celebrating its Virtues. Written at the side of Julia, when the Author was Inspired with a Dose of Laudanum, more than Sufficient for two Moderate TurksThomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839)I welcome the back again, Spirit of SongPopular SongsiAmerican Mock-Bird/i (published 1801)The Mad LoverCrazy PauliTemple of Harmony /i(published 1801)SongiChoice Collection/i (published 1805)Crazy JaneThe Death of Crazy JaneiBoston Musical Miscellany/i (published 1815)Nancy and GiniSongster's Companion/i (published 1815)Mary LeMoreiSongs for Ladies/i (published 1825)The Frantic MaidiMuse, or The Flowers of Poetry/i(published 1827)Soliloquy on SmokingElizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)GriefAlfred Tennyson (1809-1892)from "In Memoriam: III, XIV, XIX"Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)from "Empedocles on Aetna"Sydney Dobell (1824-1874)from "Balder. Part the First. Scenes XIII and XIV"Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)#126#410#435#670#1062Henry Kendall (1839-1882)Outre MerThomas Hardy (1840-1928)Just the SameThe WoundIn Tenebris IIMad JudyRobert Bridges (1844-1930)MelancholiaGerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of griefCarrion ComfortI wake and feel the fell of dark, not dayA. Mary F. Robinson (1857-1944)NeurastheniaErnest Dowson (1867-1900)To one in BedlamSpleenEdward Thomas (1878-1917)MelancholyRainSiegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)Repression of War ExperienceHauntedIvor Gurney (1890-1937)Strange HellsThe ShameTo GodAn Appeal for DeathFor Mercy of DeathWilfred Owen (1893-1918)Mental CasesEdna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)SorrowI Know 100 Ways to DieMensesDorothy Parker (1893-1967)ResumeLouise Bogan (1897-1970)Evening in the SanitariumHart Crane (1899-1932)The Idiot(John Orley) Allen Tate (1899-1979)Ode to FearAnonymous (published 1930)from "Thoughts Suggested on a Thanksgiving Day Passed at the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester, Mass. by a Patient"from iPoetry of the Insane/i (Dr. Charles Mayos, editor; published 1930)AwakeningThe SnowThe CureRichard David Comstock (published 1930)Always Like ThisStanley Kuntiz (1905-2006)The PortraitTheodore Roethke (1908-1963)In a Dark TimeHer LongingLines Upon Leaving a SanitariumElizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)Visits to Saint Elizabeth'sJ. V. (James Vincent) Cunningham (1911-1985)from "Interview with Doctor Drink"Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)from "The Studies of Narcissus"from iGenesis,/i Book IIJohn Berryman (1914-1972)Dreamsongs 172Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)In the Ward: The Sacred WoodWeldon Kees (1914-1955)from "The Fall of the Magicians"The ClinicDylan Thomas (1914-1953)Out of the SighsRobert Lowell (1917-1977)VisitorsWaking in the BlueHome after Three Months AwayUnwantedRobert Edward Duncan (1919-1988)Songs of An OtherHoward Nemerov (1920-1991)To D-, Dead by Her Own HandHayden Carruth (1921- )from "The Asylum"Lines Written in an Asylumfrom "Ontological Episode of the Asylum"Philip Larkin (1922-1985)NeuroticsAnthony Hecht (1923-2004)A Deep Breath at DawnDespairRichard Hugo (1923-1982)In Your War DreamCape NothingLetter to Logan from MilltownJames Schuyler (1923-1991)The Payne Whitney Poems: WhatThe Payne Whitney Poems: PastimeThe Payne Whitney Poems: The NightDonald Justice (1925-2004)Counting the MadThe Man Closing UpAllen Ginsberg (1926-1997)from "Howl"Robert Bly (1926- )DepressionWiley Clements (1928- )Military JournalistAnn Sexton (1928-1974)from "The Double Image"AddictRinging the BellsCarl Wolfe Solomon (1928- )Antitotalitarian Manifesto for Evergreen ReviewNed O'Gorman (1929- )Peace, After Long MadnessStuart Z. Perkoff (1930-1974)from "The Venice Poems; I:4"Junk Nursery RhymesSylvia Plath (1932-1963)ElmStreet Songfrom iThe Journal of Saint Dympna/i (Earl "Pete" Nurmi, editor; published 1979)Lee MerrillMedicationMary ColemanThe ghost behemians of Meridel LeSueurJohn Appling SoursInstitute at ChristmasLucille Clifton (1936- )shapeshifter poemsJim Harrison (1937- )NoonLes Murray (1938- )from iFredy Neptune/i, Book ISharon Olds (1942- )Satan SaysTimothy Dekin (1943-2001)MelancholyQuincy Troupe (1943- )River Town Packin House BluesThomas P. Beresford (1946- )Edith in Ann ArborRobert L. Barth (1947- )Epigraph from iDeeply Dug In/iJane Kenyon (1947-1995)Having it Out with MelancholyYusef Komunyakaa (1947- )LossesJoseph Salemi (1947- )Sicilian BeacheadAimee Grunberger (1951-1995)The Administration of VeteransJimmy Santiago Baca (1952- )This Dark SideMark Jarman (1952- )Questions for Ecclesiastesfrom "Transfiguration"Franz Wright (1953- )The VoiceRorschach TestCertain Tall BuildingsThanks Prayer at the CoveDavid Baker (1954- )HyperMelancholy ManMichael Lauchlan (1954- )What You Hadn'tJoe Bolton (1961-1990)Laguna Beach BreakdownA Couple of Suicide CasesKelly Ann Malone (1963- )Devices on StandbyBrian Turner (1967- )EulogyKevin Young (1970- )Coke (The Real Thing)from iIn the Realms of the Unreal. "Insane" Writings/i (John G.H. Oakes, editor) (published 1991) NicolBy My Own HandRichard BeardThe Queen's ForebodingJeff Holt (1971- )ImbalanceThe PatientRicky Cantor (1985- )E 9th StreetiCoda:/i Anne Stevenson (1933- )Letter to Sylvia PlathBiographical NotesCreditsIndex of PoetsIndex of TitlesIndex of First Lines

Editorial Reviews

"An excellent choice for study and discussion by residents...A substantial contribution to our field in a book that can expand the reader's sense and knowledge of not only the people we treat, but also the people we walk among every day." —Psychiatrist.com

"A Mind Apart is a wonderful book: human, beautiful, and deeply moving. Dr. Bauer, a leading authority on depressive illnesses, has made a real contribution to our understanding of melancholia and madness." —Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

"Almost as long as poetry has been written, it has been associated with madness. As both physician and poet, Mark Bauer is uniquely positioned to explore this field of reality and myth. His superb introductory essay argues that some kinds of unhinging are a benefit to poets, others a disaster. And his selection of poems from the Middle Ages to the present day is one of the most fascinating anthologies I have ever read."—David Mason, University of Colorado

From the Publisher