Please forgive the covid voice.
Information about Louise Bogan https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/american-poets-of-the-20th-century/the-poets/louise-bogan-18971970
Text of “Evening in the Sanitarium” https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/evening-sanitarium
It almost seems like Bogan had some personal experience with the sanitarium — such details.
Afterward for “Evening in the Sanitarium” by Sher Schwartz
How do you respond to this poem?
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Agree, there is something so real about these details. In compiling a family history, I learned that my mother’s great-grandmother died in a state mental hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1883, from tuberculosis. We have not been able to find out why she was sent there. Willa Schneberg’s found poem “Admission Criteria for State Insane Asylum, 1906” is illuminating.
Thank you I will take a look at that poem. I know there is deep history here. Thanks for commenting.
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melancholy was dealt with so differently those days. sounds like this sanitarium was a pretty good one. having dealt with severe mental illness in my younger years, i felt a sense of belonging and hope. i loved the fruit blooming on the plate. i’m surprised you could read this without coughing. i’m so sorry you’re ill.
Yes, that line , fruit blooming on the plate” stood out for me also. I hadn’t noticed the positive atmosphere thanks for pointing that out. I think women find true comfort around other women… it’s so good to have friends or others who understand what you have been through.
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This poem nudges me to consider how precarious our relatively stable equilibrium truly is. There are so many variables that can trouble our mental or emotional homeostasis. How many women never find their way to healing? How many are not offered a respite? How many remain entrapped in the delusions, depressions, addictions, abuse, and other struggles of the heart, mind, and spirt?
That’s neat. We haven’t had someone write in response to one of the poems. That’s a great idea. Thank you for sharing and for everyone who has commented the past few days…
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Thanks for contacting me, Sher, for a response to this poem. What a poignant and ironic poem, as if the challenges that impact mental health functioning would all go away after being institutionalized, which is just not so. My last book of poems “The Naked Room” is about mental health issues. If you or anyone wants to know anymore, here is a link to my website: willaschneberg.org. Great poem!
Willa , Thank you for responding. I just ordered a copy of your book from Broadstone books. I’m really looking forward to reading it for the historical perspective and for some surprises. For listeners –below is from Willa’s website.
The Naked Room
Just released from Broadstone Books! (Jan 15th, 2023)
The Naked Room, is a true synthesis of Willa Schneberg’s life as a psychotherapist, (of one not exempt from angst), and her life as a poet. These are poems of the unconscious, the dreamscape, the despondent, the unmoored and the mortal. This collection not only goes inside the inner workings of a clinician’s practice, but has a larger scope, which includes the history of psychiatric treatment with its dangerous “cures” and embedded prejudices, and treatment today and lack thereof for the houseless and insolvent for whom entering the realm of the “therapeutic hour” is a luxury beyond reach.
Sher Poetry 
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