Poets with Mental Illness

Conversation with
Francesca Bell

The summer issue of Rattle features a tribute to poets living with mental illness. An estimated 26% of Americans experience mental illness in a given year, and we wanted to acknowledge and explore that reality, while also helping to diminish the associated cultural stigma of these illnesses. Twenty-nine poets contributed to this issue, chosen from over 2,400 submissions. While the topics of the poems themselves vary greatly, each of the poets live with some form of depressive, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, bi-polar, post-traumatic stress, or eating disorder—all of discussed openly and bravely in their contributor notes. In the conversation section, we talk about mental illness and a wide range of other topics with Francesca Bell.

The issue also includes a dozen poets in another eclectic open section, featuring some reader-favorites like David Kirby and Rhina P. Espaillat, as well as many names new to our pages.

	Poets with Mental Illness
	Roberta Beary	Lunch Break
	Francesca Bell	Containment
	Katie Bickham	A Different Animal
	Jackson Burgess	Heirloom
	Michelle Chen	Kootenai Cradleboard
	Rachel Custer	Color Study While Withdrawing
	Rhonda Ganz	What Gets Us out of Bed in the Morning
	James Gering	Have Coffin, Need Pallbearers
	John Gosslee	My Beautiful Father the Fire Bird
	Dan Haney	Re: Heaven’s Spam Filter
	Alex Harper	Fallers
	Steve Henn	What I’m All About
	Leland James	The Sanitarium Window
	Ted Jonathan	This Has Nothing to Do with Willpower
	Sam Killmeyer	When You Tell Me That You Feel Alone
	Lorena Parker Matejowsky	Long Car Line Prayer
	Beth McKinney	Promotion to Outside Resources in Marion …
	Aaron Poochigian	Divertimento
	Colin Pope	Why I Didn’t Go to Your Funeral
	Claudia Putnam	The Battle of Brintellix
	Cinthia Ritchie	Crazy, They Said
	Jamie Samdahl	Medicated Dream Fragment
	Sara Springer	Spring
	Dana Stamps II	Buddha’s Villanelle
	Jill M. Talbot	Diversity Checkbox: When I Was Twelve
	Padma Thornlyre	After Reading a 12/4/2001 …
	Martin Vest	The Day I Tried to Commit Seppuku …
	Mark Lee Webb	What Happens When You Don’t Wear Gloves
	Jess Weitz	The Knife
	Poetry
	Sandra Anfang	The Hatred of Poetry
	Tom Chandler	The Chandlers
	Kevin Coval	400 Days
	Rhina P. Espaillat	Here
	Alan C. Fox	Wake-Up Call
	Maria Mazziotti Gillan	What Isn’t Said Crushes
	Ceridwen Hall	Changing the License Plates
	David Kirby	Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las …
	Ron Koertge	Cat Women of the Moon
	George Ovitt	That Summer
	Ron Riekki	I Had a Librarian Tell Me …
	Francis Santana	Letter Found in a Crate
	Conversation
	Francesca Bell
	Cover Art
	Jasmine C. Bell