Rick Sings - poetry by Phill Taggart

“Well I woke up this morning and I had myself a beer.” Roadhouse Blues (1970) Jim Morrison Lyrics The Doors Composition

Many years ago, I was asking a patient about his morning routine and he replied with the Roadhouse Blues lyric and started laughing. At the time he was taking medications that I prescribed but also seeing a naturopath who was giving him a complex solution of minerals that was supposed to treat his mental illness. His family was more concerned about him than he was concerned about himself.  Severe mental illness leaves a person focused on irrelevant pieces of information out in the environment for amusement/entertainment/meaning while ignoring the basics – like self-care and not standing out too far in public.  Clinicians refer to some of that as inappropriate social behavior, but it is a complex multi-layered problem. The same process can result in a great deal of difficulty staying focused on the necessary day-to-day routine. In that mix, there are boundary problems that can contaminate the most altruistic impulses and affect personal safety.  Phil Taggart does a great job of painting that picture in his book of poetry Rick Sings.

In a brief introduction we meet his brother Rick.  Rick has a severe mental illness that clearly affects his ability to function. I am writing that after reading the entire book and all the poetic descriptions. We find out that Rick has a lot of problems in living, managing his self-care and medications.  There are times when he is not eating well, where he is in an agitated state, where his hygiene is affected, and where he puts his housing security at risk by taking in women who have lost housing or were the victims of violence. His brother is a force to help keep him on track and check in with him.  Those encounters are the basis for this book.

The first images we get are family chaos – the product of mental illness, alcoholism, aggression and violence, and the death of a young sibling.  Rick’s modern-day world is tied in with that early history. Here are two stanzas from the poem Morning Coffee

 

The rest of this poem has stark images of people who come into your life and leave with you liking or not linking them or yourself along the way.  At some point it is hard to know if the memory is that sad or current sadness clouds the memory.

I recently read an essay on how art can be rhetorical in the persuasive sense. This poetry consists of observations and emotions that the imagery elicits. There is no hint of bias – only the empathy elicited by images and situations.  I had not thought of this before but Taggart’s poetry is the perfect medium to communicate the major problems facing people with severe mental illnesses and anyone trying to help them. You can’t help being pulled in when he advises his brother to stay away from the police for his own protection or when he has to let a security guard know that “he’s with me” to avoid awkward social situations.

There is a stream of consciousness flow to the poetry with associations across the lifetimes of Taggart and his brother. I liked this feature because it is the way a lot of people (including myself) think. Focus on the present and in some downtime – think about an event that happened in 1975. When your brother is in the picture – think about common events. Several of those themes run through this book of poetry and it is masterfully done.   No associated explanations – just a description of an event with a universal emotion.

I liked this book of poetry.  In keeping with my book reviews, I like the idea of conditional recommendations.  In this case – liking poetry will help.  It will even be better if poetry stimulates your mental imagery and emotions. I call the writing style of this poetry free verse like E.E. Cummings.  The phrases are also arranged differently on the page to emphasize different thoughts and actions.  If you like that style, you will like this book even more. Beyond liking poetry, this book will potentially help you understand the problem of severe mental illness and its effects on people and their families. Even though there are efforts out there to decrease stigma and attributing stigma to a lack of understanding of the problem – stigma has always been a problematic concept for me. If more people experienced what Phil Taggart puts into his poems there would be a greater understanding. He is a strong voice in this area.  Read this book if you are interested in a deeper understanding the problem.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

Reference:

Phil Taggart.  Rick Sings.  Santa Barbara, California. Brandenberg Press 2014: 67pp.  https://philtaggartpoet.com/