The mental health poems are healthy. That’s why they’re called mental health poems and not mental unhealth poems. I’m at an artist residency and a writer here writes about her struggles with mental health. She’s the sanest one here. I heard an interview with an actor who played Hamlet. He said most actors have Hamlet get madder and madder as the story unfolds, but he chose to go the opposite, that Hamlet is in his peak of madness when he finds out about the death of his father, but he slowly grows more sane and strategic in his faked madness that’s the counter to Ophelia’s actual madness. I think of madness. Anger and insanity. How much of our anger is performative, sawing air. How much of our sanity or insanity is played out, like a stage. I think of stages. I think of the five stages of cancer. The five stages of grief. I think of rage and disbelief. I think of what it’s like in a psych ward. I’ve delivered patients there. I’ve been there myself. It smelled different when you are the one incarcerated. I remember clearly how little help I got in there. I think of telling people I’ve been in a psych ward. I think of judgment. I worked in a prison psych ward. I remember how little help I saw in there. Axes drop. I remember clearly how traumatizing it was in there. And that was for me. Imagine for them. We them all the time. Them is a verb. To them. I think of the mental health poems crying. I think of the mental health poems in a corner, bawling their eyes out. And then that strange peace that can come afterwards.
Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2014 Michigan Notable Book, 2015 The Best Small Fictions, 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2019 Best of the Net finalist, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. Right now, Riekki’s listening to Chisu’s “Tuu mua vastaan.”
losing our grip on purpose 