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About Artists and Mental Health, Part 1 by Semaj Brown

Featured photo: Semaj Brown

Dear Beautiful People:

I am not the most spontaneous. I like to think of myself as a pragmatic artist/ educator. With detail, I plan my inspired projects, and remain committed until the vision is manifest.

Often, upon inception, inspiration is a 3-way giant OCEAN wave. In the past, I have described this creative process as PURE NIGHTMARE.  Three vivid poems ATTEMPT to morph into science or into a play or a visual composition of sorts or some integrated artform that requires Technologies of the distant future.

These poems gather unthinkable histories, tumble and turn into something more than what I can imagine. At times, I have been short of screaming,

“Leave me alone! I am not yo Mama!”

It can be, but, not always, a most uncomfortable tortuous feeling as the tugging and tackles occur within.

Thankfully, I have learned to become still inside the stillness, inside the stillness, inside the stillness, and suspend until the turbulence subsides.  I understand everything conceived struggles to live, even AN IDEA, even a poem.

The artistry path can be contorted; therefore, I try to check in with the Creatives. Of course, the suicide of beloved tWitch has us all feeling and thinking.  I was among the shook and horrified, and deeply saddened.

I remember numerous artists, including Michael Jackson, saying his brain could not turn off; he created continuously, incessantly. Many artists binge work until exhaustion and collapse. It is not a conscious choice. They are compelled.

For many Creatives, the work is LIFE and in order to feel alive, they must work. I understand. The brilliant comedian Robin Williams spoke of being in that camp of survival. He never felt his depression if engaged in work.

The most difficult and dangerous time for some CREATIVES in that mental mode is the void, howling to the internal moon in one’s mind.

Void provoked by unplugging, the day after, the day after, the day after a show ENDS, or when a MAJOR project FINISHES, when the stage lights fall, or final note is played. Desperation needs a lifeline in the form of a booking, a book tour, a gig, a presentation, a movie set to go, paintings in a gallery to open, or, or, being deeply submerged in ART that breathes life into others, and as a consequence of circular connection, the artist inhales the breath which returns to propel.

Certainly, I do not purport to know why tWitch ended his life. Tyler Perry posted as a response about his dark time of almost ending his life. I am grateful his terminal thoughts were unsuccessful.

The failed philosophy, we are only responsible for ourselves should end.

I see OUR, all of us in existence now, on this planet together, as a unique sacred happening. What are the odds we would inhabit the Earth at the same time, considering the vastness of time. This is intimate phenomena. We breathe the same air, feel the same wind. This is not an accident you are reading my mind by reading this writing, a closeness of beyond. Thank you for caring enough to do so. I cared enough to write to you, the Beautiful People.

Semaj Brown

Flint, Michigan Poet Laureate.

Academy of American Poets                                                                                                                                           Poets Laureate Fellow, 2021

If you have thoughts of suicide or harming yourself,                                                                                                      Please Call  988, The Suicide Crisis Life Line

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