I Go from Bad to Verse

By Donna S. Rubin ISBN: 978-1-84747-180-2 Published: 2007 Pages: 93 Key Themes: poetry, manic depression, bi-polar disorder, humour, self-harm, North American author Description I've written a book, but it's not the usual kind of "I've got this disorder, this is how I deal". My book is funny and it rhymes. I think it helps people. Those I've shared it with said it's made it easier to understand the illness without making it obvious that that's what I am doing. I rhyme a lot, make fun of psychiatry and talk about the hospital as an imperfect place that doesn't promise a cure, but does the best it can. I make fun of the food, my own doctor, and talk about friends I've made, and lost. My last poem talks about self-injury, which to some people might be disturbing, but it is a part of my illness, so I write about it. I Go from Bad to Verse is not like any other book - it makes my story approachable; in between readable verses, I explain how I came to write each poem. I think anyone can pick it up and grasp what someone with a chronic illness goes through. Just because an illness is a mental one shouldn't stop it from being understandable and have people relate to it. Donna S. Rubin About the Author Donna S. Rubin is 48 and lives in a suburb of New York City. She was diagnosed with bipolar-disorder approximately 12 years ago and her poetry reflects issues dealing with having a mental illness. She is a college graduate and even though she wasn't diagnosed in college, in retrospect she went through a major depression in her freshman year. Currently she is between jobs, trying to figure out what her next step is before becoming a famous author! Book Extract I wrote this poem during my freshman year in college, when I first encountered depression and all the uncertainty it brought. This was before I was ever even in therapy, and the questions that I ask in it are so much the struggle I came to later that I had to include it here. It is one of the few poems I've ever written that doesn't rhyme.