Commentary—

Locked Ward: Newtown, Connecticut

By Mary Ann Murtha

I was alone, sitting at my old wooden desk. I was lazily glancing through my purple and white striped poetry textbook. All of the sudden, I saw a poem called “Locked Ward: Newtown, Connecticut.”

I have to admit, I looked around the room, and wondered if this was yet another practical joke. (One morning, the bananas in my kitchen were glued together.) I mean, really, there are millions of towns to write about. There are trillions of poems to put in an anthology. So, why was there a poem about Newtown — my town — in my college textbook? Furthermore, did the poet know that my town was “nicer”? That it is a small town of picnics, parades, and flagpole patriotism?

It turns out that “Locked Ward: Newtown, Connecticut” isn’t exactly a poem with vivid images about the Newtown that I know and love. It’s a poem about a visit to Fairfield Hills State Hospital in 1962. It’s a poem about a 14-year-old child visiting her mother.

 As poet Rachel Loden recalls, she got a ride to the hospital where she was instructed to follow an orderly, dressed in strange white shoes, through door after locked door, until she finally found her mother, sitting on the edge of her bed. Her mother looked sad and broken, “like a whipped child.” Rachel dutifully brought her mom what she asked for — a robe and a sweater. Oh, how Rachel wished she could have carried her mom away to a doctor who would be kind to her, and heal her, or at least let her “rave in peace.”

Here is Rachel’s poem:

 

Locked Ward:

Newtown, Connecticut

 

Your tight-lipped jailer beckons

And I trail her like a moon.

 

The padding of her strange white shoes,

The doors she unlocks one by one—

 

then you are there on the edge of a cot

like a whipped child, with your eyes down.

 

There are no sharp objects in here,

only the malignant shapes

 

that dance out

when the strappings are undone

 

I have brought you what you wanted

from home. A robe, a sweater —

 

an irony, as though what you wanted

could be mine to give so

 

easily. Oh I

would wrap you up and carry you away

 

to some all-powerful physician

or at least some place

 

they’d let you rave in peace.

Silence of the years, the sins against

 

the white page. Carried always out to sea

by the foul winds off the laundry,

 

the stains that cannot be removed

by any washing of the hands.

 

The years are mute. And yet

there is no end to the lament

 

of daughters, no end

to the sharp objects in the heart.

 

 I spoke with Rachel about her visits to Fairfield Hills State Hospital: “These visits to Newtown were devastating. During one of them, a doctor informed me of my mother’s diagnosis, which was schizophrenia. Lacking any sort of preparation, training or support, I found the diagnosis frightening and overwhelming.”

Of course, since Rachel was only 14, and the year was 1962, she was absolutely powerless. Nevertheless, she wanted to rescue her mom. Even now, after her mother’s recent death, she says, in a voice as warm and sweet as hot chocolate, “You can see I still want to rescue my mother.”

Ironically, I wish I could rescue Rachel from some of her pain. I wish I could undo what happened to her at Fairfield Hills. But I know that’s impossible.

 The best I can do is invite Rachel to come and see the “other” side of Newtown — the side where folks play bocce at The Pleasance and eat warm apple crisp at The Inn, where little poets share their work at the library, and handpick their pumpkins at the farm.

Maybe Rachel will visit some time. But for now, I am alone, sitting at my old wooden desk, writing a poem for her. It’s called “Open Doors: Newtown, Connecticut.”

(Mary Ann Murtha is a Newtown resident who teaches writing at Western Connecticut State University. Rachel Loden is the author of the prize-winning Hotel Imperium, which was named one of the ten best poetry books of the year by The San Francisco Chronicle.)