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A review by sintari
The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded: Poems by Molly McCully Brown
5.0
“It is the land where he is buried, the place
she spent her whole life, the room
where they made it impossible
for her to have children.
It is the colony where he did not learn to read,
but did paint every single slat of fence
you see that shade of yellow.
The place she didn’t want to leave
when she finally could,
because she’d lived there 50 years,
and couldn’t drive a car, or remember
the outside, or trust anyone
to touch her gently.”
The poet (like my little sister) has cerebral palsy, and in this volume she invoked what her own haunted life may had been if she’d been born 50 years earlier in a time when science thought it best to lock our “crippled” and “feebleminded” away. I will not even lie and say I didn’t find this an incredibly tough read. And that’s also why I’d give it 10 stars if I could.
she spent her whole life, the room
where they made it impossible
for her to have children.
It is the colony where he did not learn to read,
but did paint every single slat of fence
you see that shade of yellow.
The place she didn’t want to leave
when she finally could,
because she’d lived there 50 years,
and couldn’t drive a car, or remember
the outside, or trust anyone
to touch her gently.”
The poet (like my little sister) has cerebral palsy, and in this volume she invoked what her own haunted life may had been if she’d been born 50 years earlier in a time when science thought it best to lock our “crippled” and “feebleminded” away. I will not even lie and say I didn’t find this an incredibly tough read. And that’s also why I’d give it 10 stars if I could.