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The
Poet and the Madwoman
Sandy interviewed on Late Night Live by
Phillip Adams
Sandy
blogging for Crikey.com.au
Read
Helen Elliott's opinion piece from the Age An
insight to counter fear of the mentally ill in which she
writes:
Flying
with Paper Wings is anything but a misery memoir.
Glittering with black humour and without self-pity, it shifts
other people's perceptions of mental distress beyond kindness,
compassion, sympathy and fear into some deeper perception.
The mentally unwell have not disappeared with the decommissioning
of the ironically named ''asylums'', and as communities expand,
stress and fracture at a speed we are not made to cope with,
we will see more forms of mental illness.
It is
easy to look the other way, or to stuff the outstretched hand
in the street with money as you take to your heels. Read this
exceptional book. It takes you beyond your own narrow terror
towards something that might be called insight.
Sandy
Jeffs grows up in an Australian country town in the
1950s and 60s, domestic violence ripping her family to shreds.
As a student in the 1970s she comes to terms with her sexuality
as part of an alternative family. With the onset of schizophrenia
at age 23 Sandy’s world falls apart. Flying
with Paper Wings offers privileged insights into
madness – medical, social, personal – as well as
disturbing reflections on its causes and its care. It is also
a story of how poetry can become a personal saviour in the face
of nearly irresistible forces.
The
biggest satisfaction I gained from reading this book was the
realisation that this is an exceptional record of someone
who is still gravely ill, and yet is able to surface over
and over again, with mind and humour still intact. It has
a depth which gives it strength. It has a warmth and honesty
that is refreshing.
Anne Deveson
Ultimately,
it is Sandy’s insight into fighting the monster of psychosis
that makes this book valuable to the many people – too
many – in our society that have had to fight similar
demons. Whether Sandy’s voices will ever be stilled
is hard to say. She says of them: ‘It’s like a
war of words between us. I hope it will be me who has the
last word.’ With this book, that will outlive both her
and them, I believe she has.
Andrew Denton
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Sandy
Jeffs