Poetry On Prozac

A collection of poetry about depression, self love, and acceptance.

Honorable Mention, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in Psychology. Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. Poets on Prozac shatters the notion that madness fuels creativity by giving voice to contemporary poets who have battled myriad psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. The sixteen essays collected here address many provocative questions: Does emotional distress inspire great work? Is artistry enhanced or diminished by mental illness? What effect does substance abuse have on esthetic vision? Do psychoactive medications impinge on ingenuity? Can treatment enhance inherent talents, or does relieving emotional pain shut off the creative process? Featuring examples of each contributor’s poetry before, during, and after treatment, this original and thoughtful collection finally puts to rest the idea that a tortured soul is one’s finest muse.

"Made with: paper, biros, marker pens, shaving foam + ink and disordered mind power!"--Provided by zinester.

PROZAC POET is wacky, yet inspirational. This 57 page book of poetry by the author's who's pen name is The Prozac Poet, is full of off the wall poems. It is hysterical, comical & "Out of Order" which is of course the title of the poetry book the author is currently working on. You will rush to turn the pages of this multi personality book of poetry all of us can relate to. For the depressed, suppressed & oppressed, this book will uplift them all. The writer is a previously published author with multiple articles to her credit relating to military issues in the Voice, a British newspaper. An excerpt from the author's book "Ten Years Hard Labor" subtitled Racism In the Military, was published locally, in the Intrigue magazine in 1992. The author has a degree in broadcast journalism & has completed a screenplay to her credit, entitled "Flipsided" which is unproduced at present.

In this collection of 16 essays, poets discuss psychiatric treatment and their work. Poets on Prozac shatters the notion that madness fuels creativity by giving voice to contemporary poets who have battled myriad psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. The sixteen essays collected here address many provocative questions: Does emotional distress inspire great work? Is artistry enhanced or diminished by mental illness? What effect does substance abuse have on esthetic vision? Do psychoactive medications impinge on ingenuity? Can treatment enhance inherent talents, or does relieving emotional pain shut off the creative process? Featuring examples of each contributor’s poetry before, during, and after treatment, this original and thoughtful collection finally puts to rest the idea that a tortured soul is one’s finest muse. Honorable Mention, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in Psychology. “A fascinating collection of 16 essays, as insightful as they are compulsively readable. Each is honest and sharply written, covering a range of issues (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, substance abuse or, in acutely deadpan Andrew Hudgins’s case, “tics, twitches, allergies, tooth-grinding, acid reflux, migraines . . . and shingles”) along with treatment methods, incorporating personal anecdotes and excerpts from poems and journals. . . . Anyone affected by mental illness or intrigued by the question of its role in the arts should find this volume absorbing.” —Publishers Weekly “Berlin has done a marvelous job of showing us how ordinary poets are; the selected poets have shown us that mental illness shares with other experiences a capacity to reveal our humanity.” —Metapsychology

Thank goodness that Jamie Tucknutt discovered poetry. As much for us as for him. For poetry is a great release that has enabled Jamie to tackle his demons, namely that of child abuse. As he says, poetry is written as much for the writer as it is for the reader. It is a cathartic exercise, excellent for stimulating positive mental health. When a writer is brave enough to share their experiences with a wider audience their work can help others with similar experiences. Never underestimate the power of poetry. Reading Jamie's 40 poems is a pleasure and it is a privilege to be invited into his innermost thoughts. He revisits good memories and terrible ones while also adding some really thought-provoking work, which will make you think differently about time and anarchy...

"Charlotte Lowe's Stealing the Dog's Prozac, is witty, whimsical, and oddly, wise, not something often noted in American Poetry of the moment. I deeply enjoyed it and I guarantee the same pleasure to anyone who buys it. It is never shopworn and often brilliant. It is a wonderful book." - Jim Harrison, author of Songs of Unreason (a Silver Concho Poetry Series selection, edited by Pamela Uschuk and William Pitt Root)

The American Poet Laureate shows how the state has been the silent center of poetic production in the United States since World War II. It is the first history of the national poetry office, the U.S. poet laureate, highlighting the careers of Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Pinsky, Tracy K. Smith, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Joy Harjo at the nation’s Capitol. It is also a history of how these state poets participated in national arts programming during the Cold War. Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials at the Library of Congress and materials at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Amy Paeth describes the interactions of federal bodies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with literary organizations and with private patrons, including “Prozac heiress” Ruth Lilly. The consolidation of public and private interests is crucial to the development of state verse culture, recognizable at the first National Poetry Festival in 1962, which followed Robert Frost’s “Mission to Moscow,” and which became dominant in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The American Poet Laureate contributes to a growing body of institutional and sociological approaches to U.S. literary production in the postwar era and demonstrates how poetry has played a uniquely important, and largely underacknowledged, role in the cultural front of the Cold War.