Poetry is a genre that I don’t often find myself reaching for, but I walked passed Carly Cox’s new collection of poetry and prose at the bookstore and I couldn’t resist. she must be mad is 22-year-old Cox’s first book, a compilation of her poetry and lyrical prose written from her teenage year onwards. At first glance, it had the same feel as Rupi Kaur’s writing, which, though controversial in the poetry world, I have enjoyed.
I honestly can’t pinpoint exactly what it was that had me reaching for she must be mad. But undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fantastic title. I’m a 25 year old young woman with mental health issues living completely alone for the first time in my life in another country. I think more often than not, I do feel mad. Sincerely and irreversibly mad, both in the head and at my head. Maybe what I was looking for in Cox’s writing was a reflection of that most mad side of myself, and I think I may have found it.
Like Cox, when I feel things becoming too much for myself, I often turn to writing. Sometimes short lines that I cannot truly call poetry, and other times longer pieces with no structure whatsoever. This is very much how I felt about Cox’s book, with the exception that her poetry was much more achieved than mine could ever hope to be. But the foundation of her work felt just as raw and vulnerable as I have felt in those moments of writing for myself.
“Your mind is biased
she must be mad by Charly Cox, page 75
And your brain is blind
There’s still a store of
Strength
Left in you to find.”
At times, the book can feel like constant complaint of life, but Cox herself says, “[w]hat’s sad is it’s fair and often contrite.” The acknowledgement of the truth of what she is doing (complaining), and her emotional response to it (contrition) is the brutal honesty that attracts me so much to this style of writing. To write as if no one is ever going to see your deepest thoughts is a captivating style to read, but almost impossible to find when one thinks of themselves as a writer. And she must be mad features work that taps into the honey of that feeling.
Mental health is often a topic in the book and it is one that I have actively been trying to read more on. If you haven’t already seen, I recently talked about five books on mental health that I want to read in the coming months. However, in that list, I did not include any poetry simply because I did not think of it. The timing of reading she must be mad was perfect in that situation.
It is not a book for everyone. While reading, I found both wholly relatable as a woman in my mid twenties, and extremely exclusive, and could be considered triggering as well. It is not always an easy read. Rather, at times it left me feeling like I had intruded on something highly personal, like I had read someone’s diary. But it is exactly that feeling that I feel such poetry is intended to evoke. Because it could just as easily be my own diary, and knowing this makes me feel much less alone.
Maybe that is a rather cheesy reaction, but as said in the book’s blurb, this is a book “for every girl who feels too much,” and I am very much one of those girls and it feels good to know that there are others whose head also takes them to the very darkest places. But similarly, it is funny, and open, and accepting that the mundane makes up so much of our life. Beyond the heartbreaks and the drama, the everyday is everywhere.
“Beyond a place where secrets rest
“I’ll be home in the morning” by Charly Cox, page 119
It’s dark and I don’t like it there”
While some might find this another example of a whiny woman, the open honesty of she must be mad is an example of why emotional poetry can be important for the modern woman. Cox is unapologetically emotional in this book, and it is incredibly refreshing to have those emotions celebrated without fetishisation or for the purpose of weak and dependent characters. The growing popularity of insta-poetry, where Cox first debuted her work, attests to an audience craving emotional resonance. Cox does more than just scratching the surface of writing and talking about people living with mental illnesses and it is worth reading about.
~S~
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