Performing for Toronto during the semi-finals at the 2014 National Poetry Slam, Sabrina Benaim shares her raw experience with depression, disclosing what she has endured…
‘Rape Poem To End All Rape Poems’ is a slam poem by Rutgers University Slam Poetry team, including Justice Hehir, Lindsey Michelle Williams, Kate Thomas,…
‘Skinny Girls Bleed Flowers’ is a slam poem by Savannah Brown documenting her experience with anorexia and bulimia. Brown personifies the eating disorders as monsters…
The poem ‘Requiem’ by Anna Akhmatova documents the trauma and suffering of the Russian people under Joseph Stalin. The poem was conceived as she waited…
Dan Roman uses a powerful metaphor of an ever-present roommate to describe his painful experience with depression. His recitation of this poem is a moving…
When a father loses a child, his grief can sometimes be eclipsed by that of the mother’s. This poem by Eileen Knight Hagemeister describes how…
Andrea Gibson is a spoken word artist and activist who writes with intense passion about mental illness, bullying, and social tragedy. In her award-winning poem,…
Barb Brown depicts the subjective experience of anxiety in her poem titled ‘Anxiety Comes’, lyrically describing the suddenness and fear. Anxiety Comes it comes like…
“Hope” is a famous poem written by Emily Dickinson. In this piece, Dickinson personifies hope as a bird, full of endurance and bravery, defeating despair…
‘Richard Cory’, a poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson, describes the life of a man who seemingly has it all…but commits suicide. The poem serves…
‘Spilled Ink’, a poem by Shiane Salabie, explains her personal struggle of dealing with everyday challenges. In the powerful lines, Salabie speaks to the idea…
‘Listen’ is a poem by Kaitlin Akow, presented at the Vancouver Poetry Slam. The poem discusses the issue of anxiety and the struggle to be…
Control, a song performed by artist Halsey, is a personification of her own mental illness. After being diagnosis with bipolar disorder in her teenage years,…
In his poem, ‘Alone’, Edgar Allen Poe explores his feelings of solitude and isolation. Edgar Allen Poe has been known to suffer from feelings of…
Rachel McKibbens writes a personal essay on her experience with bipolar disorder and that by denying that she had a problem, her mental condition worsened…
Rachel, a blogger on time-to-change.org, suffers from an unnamed mental illness. She wrote this poem in an effort to speak to the fear, discrimination, and…
“Out of the Darkness” is one of the many written pieces featured in a book called FASCInATE – Friends of Alma St Centre Inspiring Action…
“Jump They Say” written and performed by David Bowie is a song about Bowie’s brother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and jumped from a building…
“Hurt”, by Nine Inch Nails describes band member and lead vocalist Trent Reznor’s struggle with self-harm, heroin addiction, depression, and suicidal thoughts. He uses writing…
The song ‘Too Much On My Mind’ was written by Ray Davies in 1966 and performed by The Kinks. The lyrics describe the very real…
