Poetry

Can survivors be therapists – and even better at it? Jacks McNamara – poet, trauma healing coach, and co-founder of The Icarus Project – joins Will Hall to discuss the calling to became a therapist/counselor/coach inspired by their own struggles and survivor mutual aid. What makes a “good therapist”? Is mutual aid and friendship enough or do we need professional healers? How does sharing your trauma and oppression with clients affect working as a therapist? What about licensing and credentials – can they get in the way of truly helping people? And is a therapist at heart a wounded healer?

Jacks McNamara is a genderqueer poet, parent, artist, activist, educator, performer, and somatic healing practitioner based on the Tewa land called O’ga P’ogeh, also known today as Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks is a Lambda literary fellow, and their first book of poetry, Inbetweenland, was released by Deviant Type Press in 2013. Co-author of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, Jacks is a neuro-creative psychiatric survivor who has toured the US and Canada offering workshops and performances. Jacks is the co-founder of The Icarus Project, now the Fireweed Collective, offering mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens. Jacks is the subject of the poetic documentary film Crooked Beauty. Also check out Jacks’ previous interview on Madness Radio!

www.jacksmcnamara.net
www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-queer-poetry-inbetweenland-jacks-mcnamara/
www.madinamerica.com/2012/06/crooked-beauty/
www.instagram.com/jacksmcnamara/

You’re shut inside and it’s time for a children’s book! For this episode we’ve selected 1999’s The Iceling by Will Hall.

Jyl Ion hears voices, but she refuses to view these non-ordinary experiences as a sign of mental illness. Instead Jyl came off 16 years of multiple toxic medications, talks to her ancestor spirits and has reclaimed access to unsanctioned knowledge. She struggled through the aftermath of sexual violence and was bedridden for two years of illness withdrawing from psychiatric meds – and now emerges as a strong survivor. Today Jyl has turned her voice hearing and her traumatic past into gifts, and works professionally as a forensic medium helping law enforcement solve missing persons cases. Her new book of poetry is called Soft Out Spoken. 58 min version

https://jylanais.com/

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Is trauma also a source of creative inspiration? Can sexual passion be a force for healing? And do we have to live in either/or boxes — or is there somewhere else?

Artist and activist Jacks McNamara, co-founder of the Icarus Project radical support community, discusses their recently-published anthology Inbetweenland, including poetry about being a genderqueer person, surviving with a broken heart, and how to travel the path from madness to the wounded healer.

http://www.ashley-mcnamara.net
http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.crookedbeauty.com

Leah Harris was orphaned after both parents were diagnosed with schizophrenia and died from medication toxicity. Today she is a leading voice in survivor activism, and her powerful spoken word poetry, including “I Was A Teenage Mental Patient,” has been featured in publications including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution, and DC Poets against the War: An Anthology. Leah is also the co-coordinator of the US Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry.

Buy her new cd “Take Refuge” at the National Empowerment Center: http://bit.ly/7f5kyN

http://www.myspace.com/dharmamamaleah
http://www.usnusp.org

Editor Sabrina Chapadjiev discusses the new Seven Stories Press anthology Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, a rich collection of women artists sharing intimate accounts of cutting, alcoholism, suicide, abuse, madness and other self harm and how it relates to their creativity.

Authors include bell hooks, Bonfire Madigan Shive, Patricia Smith, Annie Sprinkle, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, and Nicole Blackman.

http://sabrinachap.com/LTT

Community organizer and writer Michael Gennarelli talks about his 8 years of psychiatric treatment as a child and his stays at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Michael reads his poetry about these painful experiences and discusses his activism, including an after school program for kids and the Misled Youth Network.

http://www.misled-youth.org
http://www.123communityspace.org
http://www.fountainhouse.org
http://www.theicarusproject.net

Psychiatric survivor and leading advocate Leah Harris reads her powerful poem “I Was a Teenage Mental Patient” and discusses how communities can work to prevent suicide by looking beyong mainstream approaches and rethinking our alienating school system.

Riot Grrl instigator Bonfire Madigan Shive talks about her family, the mental health system, living outside the mainstream and her creative inspiration as a visionary musician.

http://www.bonfiremadigan.com

Visionary writer, musician, and sculptor Eddie Bartok-Baratta performs his powerful poetry, plays flute, and discusses his amazing life, trauma and violence, and his creativity.

Ireland Activist and Poet John McCarthy, Mindfreedom International representative to the United Nations, discusses being “normally mad,” recovery, the UN Disability Convention, and challenging system abuses, in dialogue with Will Hall and co-host Oryx Cohen.

John also responds to callers, and reads a very moving poem about the death of a friend in the system. A very popular show.

Poetry special with psychiatric survivors Carey Lamprecht, Ashley McNamara, Oryx Cohen, Chaya Grossberg, Ellen Hayes, and Teddy Peterson.

Ashley McNamara, co-founder of the Icarus Project, discusses her struggles with experiences diagnosed as bipolar disorder, and her work organizing the Icarus Project, an alternative support network for people who challenge the medical and disease understanding of madness. Ashley also reads from her poetry and journal.

http://www.ashley-mcnamara.net