The 'process notes' pieces were originally solicited by Maw Shein Win as addendum to her teaching particular poems and poetry collections for various workshops and classes. This process note and poems by Brody Parrish Craig are part of her curriculum for Maker, Mentor, Muse and her poetry classes at the University of San Francisco. Thanks for reading.
Reflecting
back on Summer 2020, the catalyzing season for many poems within The Patient
is an Unreliable Historian, I believe I sensed the world was on the cusp of
something. I watched the George Floyd uprisings across the country and prayed
that somehow, soon, fascism’d stop. Simultaneously, I knew it’d be a bloody
evolution. In truth, my brain could not make sense of systemic or sudden
interpersonal violence. Summer 2020, I split, and the world broke open there.
Early that June, in downtown
Fayetteville, cops circled the youth’s picket near the Autozone after waving
through the white man who’d parked his car at the stop light to brandish a
knife at a nearby teen. His blade so close to her—to us—the sidewalk that I leapt
from. Fight or flight kicked in. I never quite came back around.
A part of me—quite simply—never
seemed to leave that intersection. When I closed my eyes, I could still see it.
When I breathed in, I was still standing there. It took several weeks before
the split completely crashed back in. Already, the pandemic had me hanging by a
thread. The walls felt like a bad omen—and then, when the demonstrations hit,
the near-death moment sealed the deal. I snapped and it was two months more
before my brain turned back around.
I left the hospital changed and
then began learning my own evolution. As always, the one way I know to find my
answers is to write. One hybrid poem in the manuscript, “In Danger (To Myself
& Others)” began as correspondence thanking a dear friend Matt for showing
up during my episode and the months after the day I got back out the ward. A
thank you note of sorts, combined with poor attempts toward explanation. When I
returned home to my husband, I learned of and continued to rely on the mutual
aid that kept me and my partner safe. Comrades brought dinner, bandages,
lawyers, and dozens of letters addressed to my name. It was over a year before
I dared to open them, but I still keep them in a hand carved box on my
bookshelf and feel their presence holds me—loves me through—from there.
That summer, we were all together.
That summer, I too fell apart. It was
with so many questions on intersections of madness and movements that I began
to read and write. I had the need to process, find, and dig, and moreso document.
The opening poem serves as a channel for all the Mad Ones who have come
before—the histories I read about, the legacies I fall into. The second and
title poem below speaks toward co-creating Mad futures: initially dedicated to
a neurodiverse student I had the privilege of teaching. He was more into
breathing techniques than poetry. It is with these dual interests in mind I
came to the world to write. We are legacies and lineages. I remain grateful for
the Mad Ones.
Mad in America
after
Robert Whitaker
Bellevue of the Ball, I court myself & off the record
we are made of mustard powder, seeds, and blister
in the madhouse son—eighth notes of a Quaker’s tale
& promise they can’t keep, to rewrite health as lock-up,
1800’s number you can call. 1-800- symptomatic sun.
A fresh script caged between, a bloodline’s malady I’m leeching off
the social ladder. Centuries, the 21st appointment with the warden.
Who’s unhinged meaning who needs to be locked in hospital--
who’s crazy, talking now, their manneristic mouth a danger
to themselves: we could be blue. We could be made of cloth
all swaddled up and open in the back, the rows of visions,
we could be prophets, sick things, could be taken
down the hall to let shock’s light in—let the leeches out—
the water spinning with a cure contraption—take us by the collar
to the mouth. A gag’s restraint. So patient in our sickness
& in health, we could be ward-robe in the stars of Snake Pit
could be screening other’s racing thoughts. Who came and went,
all body & all mind, all asymmetrical, all necklines built for shock,
even the white dressed socialite. Her husband bought a matching clutch
of white sheet for the gown. Mistaken as Bellevue or Bethlehem,
who sprouted blisters there. We cling to white walls looking
for a scripture, vine-clawed eyes, a creeper in the window looking back
in night mare’s stable house. A modest fee to watch the patients rise.
A ticket’s fair grounds keep. A bloodline never worthy of a free ride—
build up of zoos—this cripple carnival—this caged & patient sunrise—
& this symptomatic sun—the patience oversaturated, full, the mad
house without blankets, cast of clouds, who will I keep—this 1800th line:
Call if you
experience this moon as for the madman—
The Patient Is An Unreliable Historian
—for Miles—
lithium or lead, mad hatter histrionics disney movies look expensive act
according to the label in small doses stash cheek swallow good the brain
you gave away comes back tin-fold
Would you rather trope or traipse in small asylum
lithium or lead, go ask another who wars what who wore
it better in the disney movies hospitable
you pace beneath rephrase
the
liquor store unscathed
the
gaitcinched off we sit
up
straight in suburbs white
fence
picket line of records
full
of confidence & certain they
took
words right out our mouths
us doctors orders this cartoon is ahistorical until
problem
child recites our history
waiting across the room near exit's water fountain
What brims his smile his half mouth turns
each rhymed scheme he never cared for falling loose as truth
his never
mind unlined
What departmentalized the hallway alice's wonderland
scrolls in the background San Francisco film that leaks a word we've seen
before my own bouquet on the ping pong table now I'm talking to you
telling miles how to breathe by numbers
by another's key-code door we crack a slight to let the heat thin out
to chart the tremors in another's fresh cut hand of flowers trapped
between us normal
average of our knees & bright fluor-
essence in the margins
SOME SUGGESTED & RELATED READINGS FROM MY RESEARCH
Madness
& Abolition articles at It’s Going Down
Madness Network News anthology (Out of print, circa 1970s)
Brilliant Imperfection by Eli Clare
The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight
Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker
The Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward
Mad in America by Robert Whitaker
10
Principles of Disability Justice by Sins Invalid
Finally, anything and everything by Dustin P Gibson & Stephanie Keene (as
well as every person who joined in) and their Abolitionist Study Group:
Literacies Toward Freedom seminar in Spring 2022 which strongly impacted my
work on this book. Their thoughts, teachings and selected texts for this
seminar deeply impacted and informed my final revisions of The Patient is an
Unreliable Historian.
Brody Parrish Craig (they/them) is the author of The Patient is an Unreliable Historian & Boyish, which won the 2019 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest. Their writing has been published in Muzzle Magazine, Poetry, Missouri Review, and TYPO, among others. They are the editor of TWANG, a regional anthology of trans and gender nonconforming creators from the South and Midwest. A 2022 recipient of Artist 360’s Community Activator Award, Craig co-leads TLGBQ+ community arts programming in the Ozarks and teaching Creative Writing at Northwest Arkansas Community College.
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