Poet Michael Mack brings his art to mental illness

By Doug Holder

It is said that great pain brings great art. In the case of local poet Michael Mack it has brought a performance piece, “Hearing Voices: Speaking In Tongues,” that deals with Mack’s experience of growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Mack’s evocative and heart wrenching performance piece engages his genius for words and dramatic portrayal in dealing with a tragic disease. He has also penned a poetry collection, “Homework,” that deals with his less-than-ideal childhood.

Mack served in the Air Force and later worked a number of factory and general labor jobs before going back to school and completing a degree in creative writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His poems have appeared in such journals as Beliot Poetry Journal and The Cumberland Poetry Journal, as well as being aired on National Public Radio. He has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and other organizations. Mack has performed at New York City’s Midtown International Theatre Festival, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the Austin International Poetry Festival. Mack regularly presents his one-man play for consumers and providers of mental health services and for faculty and students of Harvard Medical School.

Doug Holder: Do you think your mother’s mental illness was responsible for you becoming a poet?

Michael Mack: I think I would have headed somewhere in an artistic direction eventually. But it clearly gives me material to work with. It was certainly the first larger issue that I was writing about. It was compelling for me to delve into it and find some kind of creative expression.

DH: You are not schizophrenic yourself. How were you able to create this psychotic environment on stage?

MM: I think that was one of the gifts my mother gave me.  A sense of her interior world both by her talking about it and seeing her experience it. I could have sufficient empathy to understand her experience without going through the grueling life of a mentally ill person.

DH: Do you feel artists are affected to a higher degree by mental illness in comparison to the general public?

MM: Yes. I believe there is a book out by a psychotherapist Kay Redfield Jameson “Touched With Fire.” (Redfield Jameson), who is herself afflicted with a bipolar disorder, explores the relationship between mental illness and the arts. In this book she looked at the relationship between mental illness and poets. She found there is a higher percentage of poets than other artists who suffer from mental illness.

DH:  You studied with Maxine Kumin, the celebrated Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, when you were at MIT. Can you talk about this experience?

MM: She saw something in me that I wasn’t able to see yet. (Kumin’s) was the third poetry class that I ever had and she gave me a tremendous amount of encouragement. She saw something in my writing that was worth tapping into, worth pursuing. She saw it as rich terrain and saw the possibility of me doing something with it. She took me under her wing, and we developed a friendship. Sometimes I would go to her farm in New Hampshire and help her out with farm work. I think of her as a mentor. She gave me guidance where and when I needed it.

DH: I have run poetry groups for psychiatric patients for years now. I found the reaction to it often positive and sometimes visceral. And when you perform in state hospitals what has been your experience?

MM: My experience, I am pleased to say, has been tremendously positive. I have presented in a number of state hospital settings, and, as you know, in these setting folks have been there for a long time. I was really concerned about presenting this work. It is so close to home for them. I was pleased to see the response was positive because it gives voice to their experience. Before I was to do a show at two hospitals recently, I was told that the patients were up and down and easily distracted, but this wasn’t true when I presented this work. It must have been rewarding (to) them to have their experience reflected back to them. I present the material in a very loving way. I am very respectful of my mother’s life. I think my mother and father acted heroically in the context of their lives. Neither of them ended up with the life they envisioned for themselves. My father stuck by my mother for longer than most would.

DH: Did you resent the childhood that you were given?

MM: When I first wrote about these years ago, I experienced a lot of anger. I was angry that I was cheated out of a childhood. But the more I explored the experience, I realized that they had a heck of a job. All things considered, they pulled it together remarkably. It was through the writing of this work I understood both my parents in a much deeper way.

DH: Were you influenced by Plath and Sexton’s poetry?

MM: Plath was really my first love. She was the poet I responded to most. Partly because of the experience she was writing about. But also I found a tremendous amount of energy in her writing. I was drawn to both of these poets.

Comments

[Harold A. Maio]

http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2007/07/poet-michael-ma.html

judgmental/ nonjudgmental

growing up with a schizophrenic mother, growing up with a mother who had schizophrenia."a cancerous mother?"
You are not schizophrenic yourself, You do not have schizophrenia yourself. "cancerous yourself?"
understand her experience without going through the grueling life of a mentally ill person, her grueling life.
who is herself afflicted with a bipolar disorder, who herself has bipolar disorder
repeated employ of "mental hospital"

Before I was to do a show at two hospitals recently, I was told that the patients were up and down and easily distracted, but this wasn’t true when I presented this work.
I had a similar experience at a mental institution ( I will not employ your term) in Ottawa. Invited to present to, in additiron to professional staff, a group of people with illnesses, all entered the room with their heads hung; after my presentation, all left with their heads high. By their postures "I was told" a great deal. History "has told" us a great deal about mental institutions, we choose not to learn the lessons.

I wonder why that is?

Harold A. Maio
Advisory Board
American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Board Member
Partners in Crisis
Former Consulting Editor
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal
Boston University
Language Consultant
UPENN Collaborative on Community Integration
of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities
Home:
8955 Forest St
Ft Myers FL 33907
khmaio@earthlink.net

[Somerville Resident]

It seems to me that people who have nothing better to do spend their time masturbating over whether particular words are politically correct or not. Grammatically the originally sentences are correct, and they are shorter, which is a plus. "I grew up with an alcoholic mother"; "I grew up with a blond mother". Are these problematic? No, they are shorter than "I grew up with a mother who was an alcoholic" and "I grew up with a mother who had blond hair". The problem is schizophrenia, not the words use to refer to it. So, Harold Maio, Former Consulting Editor of Something, please keep your misguided outrage for more important causes. Thank you.

[Sylvia Caras]

It's easier to use simple words and provide a quick fix. But I agree with Harold Mayo that critical analysis is crucial. Different constructions and different words create different emphasis.

I like this phrasing: "Changing how the public labels categories changes the associations those labels invoke in people's minds, which in turn changes their affective attitudes toward what is being described." David Green, Hofstra University

[Somerville Resident]

That is why, in this extreme politically correct era, mental health is so neglected. It seems to me that, IF there was anything to these arguments then it should be the opposite: as PC words increase, things get better. Instead, the emphasis on PC words has the opposite effect: they make it impossible to talk frankly about certain topics.
All is well on the surface, let's just not talk about the substance of it.