Speakers: Pamela Spiro Wagner and Dr. Mary B. O’Malley
For forty years – longer than her entire adult life – Pamela Spiro Wagner has been affected by paranoid schizophrenia, a plight she eloquently explored in her award-winning book, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and their Journey Through Schizophrenia, co-written with her twin sister, psychiatrist Carolyn S. Spiro, MD. Also an accomplished poet, Wagner has long utilized the language and emotion of poetry to express the individuality of her mental illness, capturing with vivid candor her singular inner world. In WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS, the latest volume from LaurelBooks, CavanKerry's Literature of Illness imprint supported by The Arnold P. Gold Foundation. Wagner will read from this first collection of her poems and commentary will be presented by her psychiatrist, Mary B. O’Malley, MD, PhD, who will describe the clinical roots of the poet’s art.
WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS "is much more than a testimony to a diagnosis or pathology or terminology," writes Baron Wormser in his foreword. "The poems emanate from the place of the poet’s illness but they are resolutely poems—well-written, sensually alert, quick to turn and notice and startlingly honest. They dwell on both sides of the equation of life and art: testifying to the powerful and tenuous links between the two and demonstrating that art is capable of holding its own regardless of circumstances. Some of those circumstances have been shattering. The sheer tenacity that it can take to write poems makes itself felt here in ways that are both uncomfortable and reassuring."
"This book of poetry is by a poet who happens to be a patient, and I am her psychiatrist…. Pam has a special gift that has been recognized through various awards she has received for her poetry and her writing over many years. Her efforts have contributed greatly to the understanding of what it means to have schizophrenia, what it means to have a psychiatric illness. But more importantly, Pam writes about what it means to be human." Mary O’Malley, MD, PhD
"These poems are the work of a first-rate writer, one who has sounded the well of her own suffering to retrieve the wherewithal to transform pain into the most powerful and moving literature." - surgeon and best-selling writer Richard Selzer, MD
Read more about the book here.
- Schedule of Events:
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Registration: 6:00 - 6:30PM
Program: 6:30 - 7:30 PM
About Pamela Spiro Wagner
A prize-winning writer and poet who suffers from schizophrenia, Pamela Spiro Wagner attended Brown University and went to medical school for one and a half years before being hospitalized for psychiatric care. She won First Place in the international BBC World Service Poetry Competition in 2002., and co-authored, with her twin sister, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and their Journey Through Schizophrenia, which won the national NAMI Outstanding Literature Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. She enjoys making silver jewelry and creating life-size papier-mâché sculptures. She lives in Wethersfield, Connecticut.
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