Karen Knight

Pardalote Press

RRP $23.95 PB 96pp

In this, her fifth collection of poetry, Postcards from the Asylum, award-winning poet Karen Knight captures with disarming skill, sensitivity and piercing black humour her experiences as an inmate at the Royal Derwent Psychiatric Hospital in 1969.
This exceptional book of poetry arises from Knight’s resolve to come to terms with being sent to live at the RDH as a young woman, who like many of her era, was perceived to be challenging the system and the status quo of the 1960s. For concerned parents who saw their authority being questions, the hospital was seen as providing a more stable environment for a teenager to deal with her rebellious nature.
Postcards from the Asylum encapsulates Knight’s frustration and confusion where her everyday is askew, She reflects on the confronting experiences of being institutionalised and submitting to the power of the doctors and medication reminding us that although the patients may be sick they are neither childish nor stupid.
The anxiety and unease in some of the poems describe a devastating experience yet where also written for cathartic reasons, and as Knight says “to show that something positive can come out of an experience that most people would prefer to avoid...I wanted to make a statement for all those people who couldn’t speak up”.
The hope is that this collection of poems draws attention to and promotes community awareness and concern about the plight of individuals who suffer from mental illness.

Karen Knight’s poetry has been widely published in Australian and international anthologies, newspapers and literary journals. As well as the Arts ACT 2007 Alec Bolton Award, Knight’s awards include writer’s development grants from Arts Tasmania, The Australia Council and the Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowship Award for Poetry.

“These are poems which will make you gasp - with wonder, delight, laughter, amazement and shock (yes, shock)”. Deb Westbury (poet & educator)

“Most striking in this compelling collection is Knight’s unique gift for imagery that feels both surreal and intensely actual”. John Foulcher (poet)