ABSTRACT

The creative insane have always been objects of fascination. People associate so many adjectives, ideas, and characters with lunacy, including brilliance, creativity, and artistic expression. Many artists who have been touched by such madness have felt their minds were under attack: Lord Byron, Alfred Tennyson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Sexton. This chapter discusses that Jim Klein, who is bipolar, offers poetry he wrote while in and out of mental hospitals. Writing is the most powerful therapy," he says. Also included are excerpts from "Fragments of Madness," an article he wrote that provides a glimpse into his bipolar mind. Klein had his first breakdown at twenty-nine and has since been hospitalized more than twenty times, twice at Greystone, the now abandoned "lunatic asylum" in New Jersey which once held 7,000 disturbed patients. Klein received his doctorate in English, and was a professor at an East Coast university until he was asked to leave due to a manic episode.