suicidal poets

Signs Of Suicidal Tendencies Found Hidden In Dead Poets' Writings -- posted 2001

An analysis of the use of certain words may uncover hidden signs of suicidal tendencies in writers of poetry, according to new research.

"Suicidal poets are more detached from others and more preoccupied with themselves," says Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, M.A., of the University of Pennsylvania. "Our research also illustrates how text analysis can reveal characteristics of writing that may be associated with suicide and therefore could be useful in predicting suicide among poets."

Stirman and co-author James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., of the University of Texas at Austin, note that suicide rates are much higher among poets than among other literary writers and the general population, although most poets do not commit suicide. Many suicidal poets suffer from some form of depressive disorder throughout their lives, however.

The poets who ultimately committed suicide also used more words associated with death than did the non-suicide group.

The study is published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine

Using text-analysis software, researchers compared words used in 156 poems written by nine poets who committed suicide to words used in 135 poems written by nine poets who did not commit suicide.

The suicidal and non-suicidal poets were matched as closely as possible by nationality, era, education and sex. All were American, British, or Russian.

In poems written throughout their careers, the poets who committed suicide used significantly more first-person singular self-references (such as "I," "me" and "my") and fewer first-person plural words than did the non-suicidal poets.

In addition, the suicidal poets tended to decrease their use of communication words (such as "talk," "share" and "listen") over time, while the non-suicidal poets tended to increase their use of such words.

Suicidal poets selected for the study were John Berryman, Hart Crane, Sergei Esenin, Adam L. Gordon, Randall Jarrell, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sylvia Plath, Sarah Teasdale and Anne Sexton. The were matched to non-suicidal poets including Matthew Arnold, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Kilmer, Denise Levertov, Robert Lowell, Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, Adrienne Rich and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health.

you move me

i had this idea i thought would be kind of fun and exciting, but i've shown it to 3 people and none of them seemed particularly impressed. if i'd done it (i haven't completely tossed it out) i would have started with a post of rules. for instance, i wouldn't have moved if only 5 people voted. it would have to have been maybe 5000 votes or something. my son pointed out that people would only find it interesting if i were sent someplace where i would be totally out of my element. a fish out of water story. but i already have that going on.


you move me
.
.
.

a quirky meme!

i was tagged by allen at a novel idea for a quirky meme. i have the feeling people in my family would do a much better job with this list, but here's my attempt:

1. I think a lot of women my age are lame, especially white women. And I'm white.
2. I never leave the house without antibacterial hand gel. I went two years without catching a cold. Caught the last one from my hair stylist when I was getting ready to do several book signings - so I was sick as hell the whole time.
3. I never cook. I cooked three crappy meals a day for 20 years. That's enough.
4. I love music more than books. I don't think rock gets enough respect as an art form.
5. I might be an acid casualty. If you ever meet me, you'll notice that there is often a delay to my responses. It takes my brain a little while to process what you just said.
6. If I see somebody crying, even somebody I don't know, I cry too. Once I was driving down the street and saw a woman crying. I started crying.
7. I know nothing about sports, especially football, and don't want to. I used to enjoy watching my kids play hockey and softball, but why would I want to watch somebody I don't even know run and slide and fall down? Yawn.
8. I DETEST cold weather, but live in Minnesota. Every fall I talk about moving, about GETTING THE HELL OUT OF THIS HELLISH HELL, but can't decide where to go so I never do it.
9. Has Phillip Seymour Hoffman ever been named sexiest man alive? If not, he should be.
10. I love zombies!

i haven't kept up with my blog reading today, so i don't know who's been tagged.


tag: jer -- she's in new york right now, but she'll probably want to do this when she gets back
tag: emom

i'm so lazy today. i'll try to post links later!!

this was a fun meme -- thanks, allen!!

friends and family

do friends and family read your blog?
most of mine don't, or at least i don't think they do. i can understand if we're talking about somebody you see every day. i wouldn't expect my kids to read my blog, but what about people in other parts of the country that you don't talk to very often? seems like a good way to keep updated, but most relatives and friends act as if the idea of going to my blog is weird. i shouldn't say that. most don't even acknowledge that i mentioned it. :D

contest! drawing! win a copy of who died in here!

the wonderful pat dennis has invited me to be part of her november contest. answer a question correctly about one of my books, and your name will be entered in a drawing for WHO DIED IN HERE?


here is the link, with all of the information you need:
PENURY PRESS NOVEMBER CONTEST

the winner will be announced December 1. wow. that's only a month away???
when you're visiting the Penury Press site, be sure to read about SILENCE OF THE LOONS, a recently released anthology by minnesota mystery writers. Pat is one of the contributors. i have the book, but haven't read it yet. i plan to read pat's story soon -- maybe today -- and report back!

my kid's halloween costume

guess who she was.

Once Upon a Crime Mystery Annex book Sale

a message from pat and gary at once upon a crime:

ANNEX CLEARANCE SALE!

"Once Upon a Crime's Mystery Annex has run out of room. We've recently purchased several collections of some great titles, and haven't the shelf place for all of them. So...

For the next 2 weeks, we've set up a table in the store filled with about 250 books, all priced at $2 each, or 3 for $5! New titles added daily!"

for directions and hours, click on the once upon a crime link on the left.

also right there and worth a stop: treehouse records and french meadow bakery!

halloween tale of terror

my brother's doppelganger

when i was fourteen and my younger brother was eight, we lived in an isolated desert town in southern New Mexico. my brother stood out in the largely Hispanic community because he had straight white hair and pale skin. it was Halloween. he was going as a vampire. he and my mother were in the bathroom where she was putting on his makeup. i stood watching in the doorway. we were chatting and laughing. someone knocks at the front door. i leave the bathroom, go approximately ten steps to the door. turn on the porch light and open the door, expecting a trick or treater. there is my brother, standing, not on the porch, but at the bottom of the steps, dressed in his black cape. nothing on his head. his white hair. he looks terrified. my mind is struggling with the impossible logistics of the situation. i ask how he got out there. I ask what's wrong? he runs beyond the circle of the porch light, into the dark. i return to the bathroom to tell my mom. there they both are, just as i left them.
this was a very small, one story house. probably less than 1,000 square feet. the bathroom was just a few paces from the front door. the bathroom had a window, but it was high, almost to the ceiling, and very small. if my mother had been able to stuff him through, he would have dropped six feet on the other side, then would have had to run around the house to get to the front door. logistically, it would have been impossible to pull off.

Over the years, I've asked my brother about this and he doesn't even remember it. He just gives me the same puzzled and confused look he and my mother gave me that night.

International Thriller Writers, Inc. invitation

International Thriller Writers, Inc. wants you!! use the link on the bottom left to go to the International Thriller Writers site -- and please sign up for the newsletter while you're there!!


Readers Invitation:

International Thriller Writers, Inc., is excited to invite you to attend
the world premier of the International Festival of Thrillers ---
ThrillerFest. It will be June 29 to July 2, 2006 at the fabulous Arizona
Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix.

You'll find a wealth of exciting panels and events with many of your
favorite best-selling and up-and-coming authors. Here's a taste:
Spotlight Guests like Douglas Preston, Brad Meltzer, RL Stine and John
Lescroart; David Morrell discussing the making of his ground-breaking
novel First Blood into the movie "Rambo;" a Readers Reception in which
ITW's THRILLER anthology will be unveiled and sold for the first time; and
the ITW Awards Banquet where the first annual International Thriller
Awards will be presented.

Don't miss out on the fun and excitement! To register or learn more, go
to www.ThrillerFest.com. Early Bird Registration is only $195 and the
Biltmore is providing a special discounted block of rooms set aside for
ThrillerFest attendees. Hurry though, they're going fast!

ThrillerFest is for everyone, but especially for readers of thriller
fiction. Not only is it a chance to meet favorite thriller authors and
learn more about the genre, but ThrillerFest also welcomes your input on
the programming, so don't forget to fill out the questionnaire when you
register. Go to www.ThrillerFest.com and join us as we make thriller
history.

here, kitty kitty kitty

anybody in the twin cities area need a kitten? or three kittens?
when my daughter was little, she was always dragging home kittens. flash-forward. my daughter is out of college and still dragging home kittens. this time a feral cat had kittens near her place. she had three people who said they'd take one, she caught the kittens, and now here we are a week later. nobody even came to look at the things. they're cute as hell, so i'm sure one glance and that would be that.

a literary meme

i was tagged by jason, who has a beautiful blog
called the clarity of night

okay, this was fun, but harder than i thought it would be! I'm afraid i didn't do a very good job.


Here are the rules, if you decide to play:

1. Take first five novels from your bookshelf.
2. Book 1 -- first sentence.
3. Book 2 -- last sentence on page 50.
4. Book 3 -- second sentence on page 100.
5. Book 4 -- next to the last sentence on page 150.
6. Book 5 -- final sentence of the book.
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.
8. Feel free to "cheat" to make it a better paragraph.
9. Name your sources.
10.Post to your blog.


my feeble attempt:

I hated to admit, even to myself, that i was excited by the prospect of interviewing a descendent of Mary Brown, who was probably the last person exhumed as a vampire in america.

I would always get there first, check in.

NO HLP FR BLND BABS PR LL GRLS Iam glad I bit mister Astlay

Bruce and I were walking down sunset, we found a roach on the sidewalk and we smoked it.

the bare skeleton, in our culture the very symbol of the terror of death, is in other cultures evidence that the body is safe and the living are out of harm's way.

sources:

food for the dead -- michael bell
the handmaid's tale -- margaret atwood
poor things -- alasdair gray
shakey -- neil young biography
vampires, burial, and death -- paul barber

i tag:

jeff the write thing
kelly words of a writer
emom a day in the life
rob anatomy of a book deal
jer my life's not an adventure...

musicians who blog

musicians who blog

jeff's new blog

check out the write thing, and jeff's hilarious post about this: jeff's novel-making machine

no recovery for book sales

chains report another quarter loss.


used book sales up over 11%.

article



interesting that this is close to the decline figure of 12% for mass market fiction.

i also find it interesting that in all of the articles i've read about the massive increase in used books sales, no one ever mentions the proliferation of online swap clubs.

years ago, i put this dedication in a book: special thanks to everyone who bought this book new.

i got hate mail. angry readers said they would never read another one of my books because of that dedication.

i have nothing against used bookstores. i love used bookstores. i have friends who own used bookstores, but i wish there were some way to control new book sales. i wish they couldn't be sold used for a year. i wish amazon wouldn't sell used books right next to the new ones. and i really wish they wouldn't sell used books BEFORE the new book is even released. 10 - 15 years ago, publishers should have united to tackle this problem. now it could be too late.

a century of fakers

One thing that occupies a big space in my head is worrying about all of the pretenders out there. Those people who have somehow made it to a position of power simply because they are so full of shit. They have somehow been able to trick a large number of people into thinking they know what they're talking about. What I find fascinating is how a faker can fake another faker into thinking he's real. Fakery is everywhere. Musicians. Writers. Lawyers. Doctors. All the way to the president, who might be one of the biggest fakers. How did this way of living become so rampant? Did my generation - the baby boomers - make it acceptable? When we hung up our hash pipes and quit tripping in the park, did we move on to another form of entertainment where we pretended to be adults? It's tough, this fakery. When we live in a world so inundated with fakers, it makes it hard to know if a person is legitimate, or just a clown in a closet.

(this is why chronic complainers shouldn't have blogs.)

there is a secret place in western wisconsin...

where all the rockers go:

the loneliness of the middle distance runner

i believe that characters who are alone and are loners are integral to most suspense plots.

Carolyn Wheat, in her book How to Write Killer Fiction, says, "Surround your hero with friends, and you lose the intense identification that makes true suspense so compelling."

somebody i know doesn't believe this, and always thinks my protagonists should have a huge support group of friends and family.

sex in the morgue

so, whadya think?

inappropriate for protagonists in a thriller/horror novel? and i'm not talking sex with a dead body, or next to a dead body.
not on an autopsy table
not in a cooler




i see nothing wrong with it, but i've been led to believe that i may need professional help.

do elephants jump?

let's try this again. yesterday when i posted this, my blog went screwy.

David Feldman is the guru of pop culture. You've probably heard of his wonderful Imponderable books where he tackles tough questions such as, do elephants jump?



dave's website
.
.
.

on the stereo

oh
my
god

i forgot how great this is.

got a mint vinyl pressing for my birthday. i don't think it's ever been played.

thanks, neil. :)

HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS -- COCTEAU TWINS