Flying Wounded

<strong>Flying Wounded</strong> Susan McCaslins seventh book of poetry is a daringexploration of the disturbance wreaked on a daughter by her mothers illtreated... » 

Flying Wounded Susan McCaslins seventh book of poetry is a daringexploration of the disturbance wreaked on a daughter by her mothers illtreated then untreated mental illness and of the daughters almost miraculoustransformation. The first half of the book charts the decline of the mother aboisterous southern woman of voluminous laughter who finds herselfincarcerated in an inquisitional tower. The tower is both the asylum auniversity hospital and later her own phobic existence as a mall bag lady.This woman is not sinking gracefully into madness but fighting with the forceof a female Lear.In her preface McCaslin makes the point that because the sixties was a timeof drugprescribed treatment for the mentally ill her mother was probably oneof legions of hysterical women used as guinea pigs. This should then be agloomy book. But the energy of the language McCaslin uses to describe the daytoday battles of the protagonists infuses it with wit love and somethinglike grim hilarity.The effect of living with then distancing herself from her mothers illnessis depicted in the second half of the book. The daughter does not escapeunharmed. McCaslin courageously describes some of the fears obsessions andpsychosomatic symptoms she has experienced and worked through.With amazing objectivity and delicacy of language McCaslin transforms pain here and in so many of her poems into the beauty of art. «