Mary Dunn was a poet, painter, and spiritual speaker who was with us at the AHOA / NEVAM since its inception. In 2010, Mary passed away due to pancreatic cancer that was discovered only weeks before her death. Her apartment was emptied, and her scores of journals were thrown into a dumpster. A still unknown person initially retrieved them and gave them to a friend of Mary’s. This friend brought her works to us in 2014, and the project of organizing her thousands of poems, letters, and journal entries began. Dating from 1974-2001, her writings span from her late adolescence to when she had reached middle age.
Raised in a devout Irish Catholic family in Boston, Mary was surrounded by a traditionalist view of the world. Her father, a police officer, raised her and her two brothers with a focus on discipline. Mary’s mother passed away when she was only a teenager, and her father’s speedy remarriage was a struggle for all of the children. Mary could often be seen by others as irritable or rigid -while in Catholic school, a nun advised her to “lighten up.” As Mary entered adulthood, her mental illness began to make itself visible, often manifesting in the form of relationships with people who existed in her head. These people were more often than not famous writers, such as James Baldwin, Robert Creeley, and Daniel Berrigan. Often, these fictitious renditions of real people would offer advice and guidance on her poetic practice.
Mary often struggled to maintain healthy relationships with those she loved most. Many of her diary entries express long-held frustrations toward her father, and in their letters they could be adversarial to one another. This conflict was also present with many of her friends, who despite their efforts to support Mary often found that she could be insecure and quick to anger. Nonetheless, in her journals, despite these difficulties, Mary expressed a boundless love for those around her, no matter how difficult it may have been to express verbally.
After graduating high school, Mary left home to study music at UMass Amherst. It was during this time that her mental illness began to make itself known. After a public incident of dissociation, Mary returned home to live with her father. After some respite, Mary returned to school determined to complete her degree. Upon her return, she met a professor of literature, *Scott, who would effectively, in her mind, become the love of her life. Mary became wildly infatuated with him, often unsure if the feeling was mutual. For years, Mary was unsure if his attempts to seduce her were real or imagined. The time spent with him led her to shift her focus from music to poetry. As her affection for him deepened, she began to hallucinate relationships with *Scott, Robert Creeley and Daniel Berrigan, all of whom advised her on her poetry. Creeley and Berrigan were both poets who were studied in *Scott’s literature classes, as evidenced by class notes on them that are separate from her journal entries. Much of her writing about these poets, often spiritual, literary, and sexual in nature, leads a reader to believe that these established poets were acting as a foil for *Scott.
[ed. note: it was common in that era for male professors to seduce young female coeds without reprisal}
These hallucinations led to a prolific period, extending from 1980-1983. While writing long free-verse poems often relating to the sensual and the divine, Mary would write notes on her hallucinated tutors such as “Robert is away today and I miss him.” Many of her more sexual poems are directed at these three figures she engaged with, and are sometimes seemingly directed at the God she believed in as well. Mary wrote about *Scott and her interactions with other poets well into the last years of her life.
In 1987, Mary’s diaries include a description of being sexually assaulted while she took a walk through Hartford, CT. This trauma shows itself in her poems for years afterwards. At this point, she began writing stories about a seemingly autobiographical character, “Kate,” who faces a similar hardship and later befriends James Baldwin. In these stories, the two sit on a stoop in Harlem, discussing poetry and waiting to leave for a jazz club. This suggests that after the assault occurred, the voice of James Baldwin entered her consciousness as well, offering her consolation and an added companion.
Soon after her initial diagnosis, Mary was prescribed psychiatric medications that left her in a fairly stable condition. While the voices in her head remained present, it is clear from her journals that these were syntonic hallucinations, aiding her poetry and the fullness of her life. In the last decade of her life. Mary made contact with an activist group which encouraged people living with mental illness to cease taking any and all medications. This was during a time when the validity of psychiatric treatment was being questioned, when psychiatric hospitals were being shut down, and current and former patients felt freer to make decisions about their health. During this time, a local magazine published an interview with Mary, in which she discusses spirituality, mental illness, and the perversity of being forced to take psychiatric medication. After making contact with this group, she quickly stopped taking her medications, likely cold-turkey. After that, Mary decompensated rapidly. Much of the last decade of her life was spent wandering the streets in the dead of summer, gathering trash and wearing an overcoat. She was often seen speaking incoherently to passersby and herself. No known writings exist from this time period.
Mary’s work, which spans decades, remains here at the AHOA/NEVAM in our archives. She began her writing practice as a teenager, and continued well into adulthood. Her poetry offers us a glimpse into her view of sensuality, the divine, and the unattainable. Whether the subject of her poem is a real person, a hallucination, or God, her boundless love emanates from the pages. Her journals and works maintain their relevance decades later, and are a cherished part of our collection.
For more information on Mary's life and her archived materials, please contact us.
*Some names have been changed.
Raised in a devout Irish Catholic family in Boston, Mary was surrounded by a traditionalist view of the world. Her father, a police officer, raised her and her two brothers with a focus on discipline. Mary’s mother passed away when she was only a teenager, and her father’s speedy remarriage was a struggle for all of the children. Mary could often be seen by others as irritable or rigid -while in Catholic school, a nun advised her to “lighten up.” As Mary entered adulthood, her mental illness began to make itself visible, often manifesting in the form of relationships with people who existed in her head. These people were more often than not famous writers, such as James Baldwin, Robert Creeley, and Daniel Berrigan. Often, these fictitious renditions of real people would offer advice and guidance on her poetic practice.
Mary often struggled to maintain healthy relationships with those she loved most. Many of her diary entries express long-held frustrations toward her father, and in their letters they could be adversarial to one another. This conflict was also present with many of her friends, who despite their efforts to support Mary often found that she could be insecure and quick to anger. Nonetheless, in her journals, despite these difficulties, Mary expressed a boundless love for those around her, no matter how difficult it may have been to express verbally.
After graduating high school, Mary left home to study music at UMass Amherst. It was during this time that her mental illness began to make itself known. After a public incident of dissociation, Mary returned home to live with her father. After some respite, Mary returned to school determined to complete her degree. Upon her return, she met a professor of literature, *Scott, who would effectively, in her mind, become the love of her life. Mary became wildly infatuated with him, often unsure if the feeling was mutual. For years, Mary was unsure if his attempts to seduce her were real or imagined. The time spent with him led her to shift her focus from music to poetry. As her affection for him deepened, she began to hallucinate relationships with *Scott, Robert Creeley and Daniel Berrigan, all of whom advised her on her poetry. Creeley and Berrigan were both poets who were studied in *Scott’s literature classes, as evidenced by class notes on them that are separate from her journal entries. Much of her writing about these poets, often spiritual, literary, and sexual in nature, leads a reader to believe that these established poets were acting as a foil for *Scott.
[ed. note: it was common in that era for male professors to seduce young female coeds without reprisal}
These hallucinations led to a prolific period, extending from 1980-1983. While writing long free-verse poems often relating to the sensual and the divine, Mary would write notes on her hallucinated tutors such as “Robert is away today and I miss him.” Many of her more sexual poems are directed at these three figures she engaged with, and are sometimes seemingly directed at the God she believed in as well. Mary wrote about *Scott and her interactions with other poets well into the last years of her life.
In 1987, Mary’s diaries include a description of being sexually assaulted while she took a walk through Hartford, CT. This trauma shows itself in her poems for years afterwards. At this point, she began writing stories about a seemingly autobiographical character, “Kate,” who faces a similar hardship and later befriends James Baldwin. In these stories, the two sit on a stoop in Harlem, discussing poetry and waiting to leave for a jazz club. This suggests that after the assault occurred, the voice of James Baldwin entered her consciousness as well, offering her consolation and an added companion.
Soon after her initial diagnosis, Mary was prescribed psychiatric medications that left her in a fairly stable condition. While the voices in her head remained present, it is clear from her journals that these were syntonic hallucinations, aiding her poetry and the fullness of her life. In the last decade of her life. Mary made contact with an activist group which encouraged people living with mental illness to cease taking any and all medications. This was during a time when the validity of psychiatric treatment was being questioned, when psychiatric hospitals were being shut down, and current and former patients felt freer to make decisions about their health. During this time, a local magazine published an interview with Mary, in which she discusses spirituality, mental illness, and the perversity of being forced to take psychiatric medication. After making contact with this group, she quickly stopped taking her medications, likely cold-turkey. After that, Mary decompensated rapidly. Much of the last decade of her life was spent wandering the streets in the dead of summer, gathering trash and wearing an overcoat. She was often seen speaking incoherently to passersby and herself. No known writings exist from this time period.
Mary’s work, which spans decades, remains here at the AHOA/NEVAM in our archives. She began her writing practice as a teenager, and continued well into adulthood. Her poetry offers us a glimpse into her view of sensuality, the divine, and the unattainable. Whether the subject of her poem is a real person, a hallucination, or God, her boundless love emanates from the pages. Her journals and works maintain their relevance decades later, and are a cherished part of our collection.
For more information on Mary's life and her archived materials, please contact us.
*Some names have been changed.
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