Poems from the Madhouse

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Spinifex Press, 2002 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 88 pages
Poems from the Madhouse invites readers into the paradoxical world of insanity: the confusion and clarity, the courage and fear, the bleak despair and the black comedy. Only a poet could make us hear the thundering whisper of insanity, the endless circling of the revolving door, the sheer practicality of whatever gets you through the night. Here are portraits of other people in wards filled with restless wanderers. In the end, it is humour, a thesaurus of monickers that enable the reader to emerge sadder, wiser, but not hopeless.

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About the author (2002)

Sandy Jeffs is an author born in Ballarat and has a BA from La Trobe University. She has lived with schizophrenia and all its moods for over thirty years. She is a community educator who speaks to schools, universities and community groups about what it¿s like to live with a mental illness. She is the author of the bestselling Poems from the Madhouse (1993; reprinted 2000, 2001), Loose Kangaroos (co-author, 1998), Blood Relations (2000), Confessions of a Midweek Lady: Tall Tennis Tales (2001), and The Wings of Angels: A memoir of madness (2004), and her autobiography, Flying with Paper Wings: Reflections on Living With Madness (2009).